Friday, October 20, 2017 would have been Tom Petty’s 67th birthday, and fans marked the occasion by having a “vampire walk” last Thursday night in Southern California.
The event happened along Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, which Petty mentions in his 1989 hit, “Free Fallin'” — “All the vampires walkin’ through the valley/Move west down Ventura Blvd.”
“My friends were joking with me how I wasn’t a Tom Petty fan before this, but how can I not be a fan after this?,” explained walk organizer Mary Soracco to L.A. Daily News. “I love L.A., and he loved L.A., and that’s the reason why I’m doing this.”
An estimated 300 Petty fans dressed in Gothic and vampire attire for the walk, which included a Tom Petty lookalike who led sing-a-longs of songs including “Learning to Fly” and “I Won’t Back Down” and American Girl.”