According to everyone in a position to know, Tom Petty could be more stubborn than a mule with a cactus up its backside! This is the reason why no individual was able to persuade him to undergo urgently needed hip surgery rather than going on a gruelling tour with his band. While this showed the level of his commitment to his band and fans, it was the prime reason he passed on to the great beyond on Oct 2, 2017.

Days earlier, the final show of the tour had been wrapped up at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The final performance was only the last out of three concerts held at that same venue and concluded the 40th anniversary of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

A man of steel!

Watching the videos of the show, one cannot help but think that Petty looked tired and appeared incapable of walking normally, but at the same time had lots of positive energy flowing into him via his music. Soon after the band had taken their bows, he thanked the crowd of fans who had gathered to watch him give yet another outstanding performance, signed a few autographs and left.

As to be expected, tributes of the great man have been falling like snow in a snowstorm. Apart from personal messages, an increasing number of other artists are choosing to perform Petty songs during their shows and there has even been a "vampire walk" organized by fans who were inspired by the song "Free Fallin'".

A trio of months after Petty's abrupt departure for the pearly gates, his family confirmed rumours that he died following an accidental overdose of prescribed painkillers. They also confirmed that the hip fracture had in the hours before his death transformed into a full break. They believe that this break led to increased pain, which forced Petty to up the dosage of his pain meds to an unintentionally fatal level.

His daughter AnnaKim was thoroughly dismissive of reports that Petty had become addicted to his pain meds.

"His recent death is tragic, yet he died from doing what he loved and what will continue to keep his spirit alive," she said. "Touring with a broken hip because he would have it no other way. He loved performing. There are no hypothetical questions I love my dad and feel he is an immortal badass. The amount of pain his hip caused was beyond a normal surgery."

"He would do anything to help anyone ' his bandmates, the crew, the fans ' and that's why he did the last tour with a fractured hip," Petty's wife Dana said. "He was adamant. He found out a few days before the tour was gonna start ' and that he had emphysema." According to her, he'd been "insane in pain, but he was stubborn. He'd had it in mind it was his last tour and he owed it to his long-time crew, from decades some of them, and his fans."

Reflecting popular opinion, Nicks, who is a new addition to the Heartbreakers line up recently said that the last tour should never have been held with Petty being so sick. In reaction, fellow band member Mike Campbell said, "She wasn't there. Once Tom made up his mind, nobody was going to talk him out of anything. If you said, 'Oh, you should go to the hospital,' he'd be like, 'Fuck you, I'm doing the tour.' Nobody forced him to do it. ! All I know is he did what he wanted to do, and we backed him up. We were there for him. And he was having the time of his life. I'm not loving you. He was loving that tour."

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