John Mellencamp wanted to make one thing perfectly clear to the audience at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theater:
“The older I get, the less I give an (expletive),” proclaimed the 71-year-old Hoosier. “I don’t give (expletive)”
Still, I think Mellencamp protests too much.
You don’t put on a fiery show like he did on Friday and don’t give (expletive). Indeed, his passion burned red hot during the little over two-hour concert, flipping through his songbook as convincingly as at any other time during a recording career stretching back to 1976’s debut “Johnny Cougar,” “Chestnut Street Incident.”
He still champions social issues through song, both in his older songs and the new ones he has written. His comments to the audience on Friday — the first half of a two-night stand at the venue — make it clear just how much the art of songcraft still matters to him. And he works very hard to put on a show that matters to both the audience and the musicians on stage.
So yes, Mellencamp still cares. He cares a lot about him.
And he certainly cares about old movies, something that was underscored during a 30-minute opening clip featuring clips from some of Mellencamp’s favorite classic films — including 1954’s “On the Waterfront” and 1960’s “The Fugitive Kind,” both starring Marlon Brando in the leading role. shown on a large screen in the center of the stage. However, this tie-in with tour sponsor Turner Classic Movies only worked moderately well, as crowd noise made it very difficult to hear dialogue.
Right around 8:30pm, the screen went up for the audience to watch Mellencamp and his amazing six-piece band launch into the deeply cut “John Cockers” from 2008’s “Life, Death, Love and Freedom.” The star was also joined onstage by a few creepy-looking movie star mannequins, including one that was supposed to be Brando and another that might have been Paul Newman — although it honestly looked just as much like Pee Wee Herman from my point of view.
From that soft-sell opener, Mellencamp quickly shifted into high gear for a stellar three-song run through “Paper in Fire,” “Minutes to Memories,” and “Small Town,” the latter of which really got the crowd in the party mood. All of those songs were taken from Mellencamp’s two 1980s albums — ‘Scarecrow’ and ‘The Lonesome Jubilee’ — which rank as the best outings in his entire catalog. In total, eight of the 21 songs performed were from those two records.
Mellencamp then gave fans time to catch their breath as he moved from old fan favorites to some lesser-known tracks, including “Dear God,” “Jackie Brown,” and “Don’t Need This Body.”
“I can see from watching the audience that some of you people can identify with this,” Mellencamp said in the introduction to the aging ode “Don’t Need This Body.”
The highlight of this center section of the show came when he played “The Eyes of Portland,” a touching new song about the plight of the homeless that Mellencamp wrote after visiting the Oregon city a few years ago.
“I played Portland a few nights ago,” he said. “And it doesn’t get any better.”
Mellencamp’s vocals were rawer than in his commercial prime, but in a way that only seemed to reinforce the authority and maturity of the lyrics. You believed every word he sang, which is a rare treat in 2023.
He also told numerous intriguing stories, usually introducing the song he was about to perform. He talked about his family and said his grandmother turned 100 and his father is 93.
“I’m not going to make it (for that long) because I’ve been smoking since I was 10,” he said.
That eventually led to a beautiful story about a prayer session with his grandmother that inspired ‘Longest Days’, a standout song from ‘Life, Death, Love and Freedom’ that Mellencamp finds John Prine-esque at its most.
“Deep in your soul, you know yourself, you have no flame,” he sang. “And who knows which way we should go. Life is short, even in its longest days.”
The most humorous part of the evening was when Mellencamp launched into an acoustic version of “Jack & Diane,” which naturally enlisted a huge audience to sing along – just not very accurately.
The audience ended up getting the wrong lyrics — which apparently isn’t a rarity at a Mellencamp show — so the song’s author stopped to chastise the chorus of hundreds.
“You must have been absent the day they learned Songwriting 101,” he said.
In the end, he gave the fans one more chance, which they would take, as he carried the chorus of “Jack & Diane” with such gusto that it could have been heard far into the Sunset District.
Mellencamp then made another movie connection – which eventually worked – playing an audio recording of the Joann Woodward dramatically reading the lyrics to his song “The Real Life” with live accompaniment on accordion and violin.
From then on they were (almost) all hits as Mellencamp raced through such gems as “Rain on the Scarecrow” (which is the most powerful song in his entire catalog), “Lonely Ol’ Night”, “Crumblin’ Down” (combined with some from Them’s “Gloria”) and “Pink Houses.”
He closed the show with a big version of “Hurt So Good” – from 1982’s quintuple platinum selling “American Fool” – leaving the audience so well as they exited the fine theater and headed to Market Street.
Mellencamp will also perform at the Golden Gate Theater on March 18. Visit broadwaysf.com for tickets and information.
John Mellencamp Set List:
1, “John Cockers”
2, “Paper on Fire”
3, “Minutes to Memories”
4, “Little Town”
5, “Hello God”
6, “Human Wheels”
7, “Don’t Need This Body”
8, “Jackie Brown”
9, “Watch It”
10, “The Eyes of Portland”
11, “Longest Days”
12, “Jack & Diane”
13, “I always lie to strangers”
14, “Real Life”
15, “Rain on the Scarecrow”
16, “Lonely Old Night”
17, “Crumblin’ Down”/”Gloria”
18, “Pink Houses”
19, “Hunting Rainbows”
20, “Cherry Bomb”
21, “hurts so good”
