Great Wide Open has turned Tom Petty’s October birthday into an annual ritual at Buffalo Iron Works. Saturday, October 17 marks their second consecutive year running the tribute on Illinois Street, three days before what would have been Petty’s 76th — the show is built for people who know every word and want to be in a room full of people who do.
About the Show
The Buffalo five-piece — Mark Slimko on lead vocals and guitar, Jeff Kocher on lead guitar, Mike Schill on bass, Bruce Decker on keyboards, Hammond, and harmonica, and Bill Solak on drums — has spent years building a reputation across the region and well beyond it, including a Main Stage appearance at the 2026 Heart of Music Festival in East Aurora. The band brings, by its own reckoning, “decades of experience” and “a genuine love of live music, and a deep appreciation for the timeless sound and spirit of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.” That’s many tribute bands’ pitch. The difference here is that the reviews tend to hold it up.
Step Out Buffalo described Great Wide Open as capturing “the distinct tones, unmistakable groove, and spirit of the Heartbreakers, delivering every riff, beat, and lyric with absolute authenticity, from the classic hits to the deep cuts.” Audience responses from California engagements have been equally direct: “you would think you were at an actual TP concert” and “absolutely fantastic — I feel like I’m at a real Tom Petty concert.”
The band’s stated mission is to bring the Tom Petty experience “to those who were never able to see Tom and his band live in concert.” Given that Petty died in 2017, that framing has acquired a permanence the band may not have anticipated when they started. The October 17 show arrives with the full birthday party infrastructure: a Petty-themed temporary tattoo station, a themed photo booth, and a Tom Petty lookalike contest, with winners taking home two free tickets and a band patch.
Venue & Logistics
Buffalo Iron Works, at 49 Illinois Street in Buffalo, is the right kind of room for this: close enough that the vocals carry without a monitor stack, intimate enough that the singalongs actually land. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. for the 8:00 p.m. show. This is an 18+ event.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Tickets are available through Eventim via the venue event page. Buy tickets