Tom Petty was a musician who could unite people. This concert, in his honor, will do the same.

The first two days of October hit Abby Sheriff hard.

First came the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. On Oct. 1, 604 concertgoers were shot, with 58 of them killed. And then came reports that Tom Petty had been hospitalized. The next day, the legendary Americana rocker succumbed to cardiac arrest.

It was simply too much, and Sheriff hit a level of despair. She found herself staring at the news and scrolling through her Facebook feed in an overwhelmed stupor.

But then she decided to do something. She floated the idea of a Tom Petty tribute show on Facebook and was swamped by replies. Her friend list, it’s worth noting, is filled with numerous Triangle musicians.

“Within three days, I had three full sets of music, and then we added even a few more,” Sheriff says. “We squeezed in a few solo folks to do three or four songs here and there.”

And the musicians kept coming. Eventually, Sheriff had to simply tell them the show was full.

On Dec. 15, Sheriff’s dream comes to fruition. That night, the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro hosts “Heartbroken: A Tom Petty Tribute to Benefit the Victims of the Las Vegas Shooting.”

Performers on this stacked bill include members of noted local acts like Mount Moriah and Lost in the Trees. Kym Register of Loamlands, who also owns Durham venue The Pinhook, has put together a group for the performance, as has Rebecca Newton, a longtime local musician who happens to be the CEO of Carolina Theatre and Sheriff’s mother. Asheville’s Wicked Weed Brewing has donated beer for the musicians, too.

Proceeds benefit the Las Vegas Victims Fund and North Carolinians Against Gun Violence (NCGV). It was a way to honor the memory of a beloved musician, Sheriff says, but also to take action against epidemic gun violence. Besides, Sheriff notes, doing something feels a lot better than staring in blank fatigue at the news.

“It made sense to honor and help the Las Vegas victims and to do a gun violence fundraising tribute just because of the timing,” says Sheriff. “Then, in the meantime, there have been more shootings.”

It’s been more than two months since the Las Vegas shooting, and it no longer appears in daily headlines. That’s one reason it makes sense to do a benefit show for the victims, some of whom may still be hospitalized and accruing medical debt. Plus, Sheriff said, there’s been little effort to change gun laws and prevent future massacres.

Making a difference

“A lot of times people, when they see about mass shootings or just everyday shootings on the news, they can feel hopeless,” says Becky Ceartas, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence. “A lot of people feel like this is not normal and should not become the new normal and want to do something to make a difference.”

Ceartas is excited that the Heartbroken benefit concert can raise community awareness about gun violence, but also give people an opportunity to take action. Her organization’s work involves educating the public but also working to ensure that current gun laws are enforced and that new legislation is enacted.

“In this (legislative) session, we were able to beat back the corporate gun lobby and save our pistol purchase permitting system, which is a system that you have to go to the sheriff’s office if you want to buy a handgun and get a permit,” Ceartas says. “We were also able to stop a very dangerous bill that would have allowed guns on UNC system and community college campuses. This is something that the schools were strongly against.”

It’s ongoing work. She said one bill that’s still up in the air is a repeal of North Carolina’s concealed carry weapons permitting system. If it passes the N.C. Senate, Ceartas says, it can still be vetoed, which NCGV is working toward. On a federal level, a bill requiring states to honor each others’ concealed carry permits passed the House of Representatives on Dec. 6. Ceartas describes this as an erosion of states’ rights to protect their citizens.

“It’s such a shame that this is how the corporate gun lobby will respond to mass shootings,” she says.

Yet NCGV works not just with lawmakers, but with everyday people, too. The organization gives away gun locks anywhere it goes to try and decrease the danger of further gun deaths.

Musician Jeff Hart, bandleader of Jefferson Hart and the Ghosts of the Old North State, will be performing at the benefit. He said he knows hunters and has no problem with hunting weapons. Automatic weapons, though, have no place outside of the military or police departments, he says. For the real-world effect of having these kinds of guns legal or available, he points to mass killings like Las Vegas or Newtown, Conn.

“I think a lot of people just felt hopeless and helpless,” Hart says. “What can we do? ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ is probably the feeling.”

When Hart learned about Sheriff’s Tom Petty tribute show, he got on board and helped her tap musicians to play it. He’d done large tribute shows before, and it also gave him something constructive to do. His primary contribution will be playing Petty’s 1979 record “Damn the Torpedoes” in its entirety with his band and several guest vocalists. This will be this Petty fan’s second time covering that album.

“When I was learning guitar in 1980, that was probably one of the albums I listened to the most. I still think it’s his best album,” says Hart. “It was the backdrop of my senior year of high school, and I felt like I knew every nuance of that album.”

Petty was a uniting musician, Sheriff says, and his broad appeal means Heartbroken’s bill features a variety of genres she doesn’t think she’d see together otherwise: heavy metal, folk singer-songwriters and Sheriff’s Blondie tribute band, all celebrating the same late rock-and-roller. And the uniting cause – helping the victims of the Las Vegas shooting and preventing further gun violence – got Sheriff out of her rut.

“We want to put money toward keeping (shootings) from happening again, especially in our state and locally,” she says. “It’s not enough to just throw money at a problem after it’s already happened.”

This story was originally published December 15, 2017 at 1:19 PM with the headline "Tom Petty was a musician who could unite people. This concert, in his honor, will do the same.."