This Friday night, members of two of the area’s most popular bands, Tokyo Joe and The Root Doctors, will join forces to pay tribute to a man who many rock and roll music fans probably still miss greatly: Singer, songwriter and guitarist Tom Petty.

The act these band members have created is called “The Best Of Everything: A Tribute To Tom Petty,” named after the sweeping ballad that concludes Petty and his beloved band, The Heartbreakers’ 1985 album Southern Accents, which hit #7 on the Billboard album charts and sold more than a million copies in the U.S.

On the Icehouse Amphitheater stage this Friday, some of Columbia’s favorite musicians will spend an evening paying tribute to all of Petty’s career, both with and without The Heartbreakers. This show is presented by Lexington’s own O’Hara’s Public House.

And this tribute act doesn’t just stand onstage and play the classics; they do so with visual nods to Petty’s past, including his signature Rickenbacker guitar and the top hat that made appearances in the videos for the hit singles “You Got Lucky” and “Don’t Come Around Here (No More).”

The Best of Everything band gets to cherry pick the best and most beloved tunes from Petty’s four-decade-plus career, so you can expect to get a guided tour through some of the best American rock & roll music ever made, starting with the classics “American Girl” and “Breakdown,” and moving through “Listen To Her Heart,” “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” “The Waiting” and “Learning To Fly” and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” among many others.

The band also takes Petty’s solo career into account, playing tunes like “Free Fallin,’” “Running Down A Dream,” and “I Won’t Back Down,” from 1989’s multi-platinum selling Full Moon Fever, and “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and “You Wreck Me” from 1994’s Wildflowers, often called the best album of Petty’s long career.

With a catalog like that to choose from, this concert is sure to be a great experience for rock music fans, but especially for fans who have felt like nothing’s been the same since Petty tragically and unexpectedly passed away in late 2017.

And its’ difficult to think of a group of musicians better suited to the task of paying tribute to a rock legend.

While they both play original material from time to time, both The Root Doctors and Tokyo Joe have become two of the most popular bands in the Midlands by banging out lively and faithful cover versions of different eras of rock history. These are bands that know how to get people moving with an arsenal of classic rock and pop hits, so they’ll have Petty’s signature sound down to a science.

So if you still miss the man in the top hat with the wry smile and too many great songs to count, consider letting The Best Of Everything take you on a journey this Friday night.