John Mellencamp wanted to make one thing perfectly clear to the Golden Gate Theater audience in San Francisco:
“The older I get, the less I give (expletive),” proclaimed the 71-year-old Hoosier. “I don’t give a fuck (expletive)”
Still, Mellencamp protests too much, I think.
You don’t do a fire show like he did on Friday and you don’t give a (expletive). Indeed, his passion was burning red-hot throughout the show’s just over two hours as he carried his songbook as convincingly as at any point during a recording career stretching back to the 1976 debut of “Johnny Cougar,” “ Chestnut Street Incident.
He’s still advocating for social issues through music, both in his older numbers and the new ones he’s writing. His comments to the crowd on Friday – the first half of a two-night affair at the venue – made it clear how much the art of songwriting 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.
And he certainly cares about old movies. This was underscored during a 30-minute opening segment, where clips from some of Mellencamp’s favorite classic films – 1954’s “On the Waterfront” and 1960’s “The Fugitive Kind”, both starring Marlon Brando – flashed on a large screen. at the center of the stage. That tie-in with tour sponsor Turner Classic Movies, however, worked only moderately well, as the noise from the crowd made it very difficult to hear dialogue.
Around 8:30pm, the screen lifted so the crowd could see Mellencamp and his superb six-piece band launch into the deep “John Cockers” from 2008’s “Life, Death, Love and Freedom”. stage by some creepy movie star mannequins, including one that was supposed to be Brando and another that might have been Paul Newman – although it honestly looked so much like Pee Wee Herman from my vantage point. .
From that soft-selling opening, Mellencamp quickly transitioned into a big three-song run through “Paper in Fire,” “Minutes to Memories,” and “Small Town,” the last of which really got the crowd into party mode. All of those numbers came from Mellencamp’s two ’80s albums – “Scarecrow” and “The Lonesome Jubilee” – which rank as the best releases from her entire back catalogue. In all, eight of the 21 songs performed were from these two albums.
Mellencamp then gave fans time to catch their breath as he moved from longtime fan favorites to some lesser known cuts including “Dear God”, “Jackie Brown” and “Don’t Need This Body”.
“I can tell, looking at the audience, that some of you can relate to that,” Mellencamp said in the introduction to the age-old ode “Don’t Need This Body.”
The highlight of this middle section of the show came when he played “The Eyes of Portland,” a poignant new song addressing homelessness that Mellencamp wrote after visiting the Oregon city a few years ago.
“I just played in Portland a couple nights ago,” he said. “And it’s not getting better.”
Mellencamp’s vocals were deeper than in her commercial heyday, but this only seemed to add to the authority and maturity of the lyrics. You believed every word he sang – a rare treat in 2023.
He would also tell many intriguing stories, usually in the intro to the song he was about to play. He spoke of his family, noting how his grandmother lived to be 100 and that his father is 93.
“I won’t hold out (so long) because I’ve been smoking since I was 10,” he said.
This eventually led to a beautiful story about a prayer session with his grandmother that inspired “Longest Days,” a standout track from “Life, Death, Love and Freedom” that finds Mellencamp at his most John Prine-like.
“Deep in your soul, you know you, you don’t have flames,” he sang. “And who knows then which way to go. Life is short, even on its longest days.”
The funniest part of the night was when Mellencamp released an acoustic version of “Jack & Diane”, which, of course, got a large audience to sing along – but not quite accurately.
The crowd ended up getting the lyrics wrong – apparently not 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 you taught composition 101,” he said.
He ended up giving the fans another chance, who nailed it, taking the chorus of “Jack & Diane” with such enthusiasm that it could have been heard in the Sunset District.
Mellencamp then made yet another cinematic connection – which ultimately worked out – while playing an audio recording of Joann Woodward dramatically reading the lyrics to her song “The Real Life” to live accompaniment by accordion and violin.
From that point on, it was (almost) every hit as Mellencamp ran for gems like “Rain on the Scarecrow” (which is the most powerful number in the entire catalog), “Lonely Ol’ Night”, “Crumblin’ Down” ( combined with some of Them’s “Gloria” and “Pink Houses”.
He ended the show with a great rendition of “Hurt So Good” – from the 1982 quintuple platinum-selling album “American Fool” – leaving the crowd feeling so good as he walked out of the lovely theater and down Market Street.
Mellencamp also performs March 18 at the Golden Gate Theater. Visit broadwaysf.com for tickets and information.
John Mellencamp’s Setlist:
1, “John Cockers”
2, “Paper Burning”
3, “Minute Memories”
4, “Small Town”
5, “Hey God”
6, “Human Wheels”
7, “I Don’t Need This Body”
8, “Jackie Brown”
9, “Take a look”
10, “The Portland Eyes”
11, “Longer Days”
12, “Jack & Diane”
13, “I Always Lie To Strangers”
14, “The Real Life”
15, “Rain on the Scarecrow”
16, “Lonely Night”
17, “Crumblin’ Down”/”Gloria”
18, “Pink Houses”
19, “In Search of the Rainbow”
20, “Cherry Bomb”
21, “Hurts So Good”