Mike Campbell Credit: Sheva Kafai
Tom Petty’s right-hand man for over 40 years doesn’t want you to feel bad for him.

In the nearly five years that Mike Campbell’s boss has not been on this earth, the guitarist has taken on a world tour with a Buckingham-free Fleetwood Mac, and resurrected his old side project, The Dirty Knobs. The band originally formed to keep Campbell occupied while Petty and the Heartbreakers were off the road.

In 2020, the Knobs scheduled a date at Orpheum to wrap up its tour supporting debut album Wreckless Abandon.

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Three postponements later, Mike and the boys are now kicking off their debut tour at Orpheum on Wednesday, March 9, with two albums to promote. The show is currently on the cusp of selling out, so if you can’t make it, at least you can still indulge in External Combustion, which is out this Friday.

Josh Bradley is Creative Loafing Tampa Bay's calendar editor. He started as a freelance music writer in 2020 at the age of 18, and after spending years covering, announcing, and previewing concerts in...