Scattered thoughts on John Mellencamp at Pine Knob, 9-15-24

I went up to Pine Knob, the storied Detroit-area shed from the 70s, to see the Outlaw Music Festival this past weekend. I went to see Dylan (which I wrote about over at the great Dylan newsletter, Flagging the Double E’s) and booked it out as soon as he was done, no shame. I’ve seen Willie, the show was sold out, I had to write and didn’t want to be sitting in traffic for an hour afterwards before then driving home 45 minutes. But I found myself having many thoughts during Mellencamp’s set (which I thoroughly enjoyed) so I thought I’d try to work some of it out for here for my paid subscribers. (Okay, I tried but apparently this went to everyone. Sorry!) This isn’t very polished, at all, so I hope you’ll bear with me. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen John Mellencamp. This isn’t meant as an insult, he just wasn’t my thing. I was in my 20s when he was John Cougar, and he was on the radio constantly. When he decided he was going to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to be an artist instead of a record company product, I respected the hell out of him. I still didn’t connect with his music any more than I did, but I liked his approach and his attitude. I think this is a thing that we have lost over the decades, the ability for the intelligent and engaged music fan to say, “That thing isn’t for me, but you enjoy your thing. I hope you have a great time!” and absolutely mean it. (I confess that sometimes when I say that I am just not in the mood for an argument and what I really think is that their favorite artist sucks, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight for me to pull up a chair and dissect why.) 

This is part of why I held back on buying a ticket to Outlaw when the shows were announced. I hate sheds -- there is very little rock and roll music that is improved by being performed outside, for either the audience or the performer -- and I do not want to spend an entire fucking day having to drive somewhere, park in a field, walk miles from my car to my seat, and then have to repeat the process only to sit in traffic for an hour before I can drive the same distance home. I understand that I am not the target market for this, but I also have a new and urgent need to see Bob Dylan as often as possible while I still can. So I went to Pine Knob. 

The opening act for this date was Southern Avenue, and I honestly was completely neutral on this part of the bill until I heard them soundchecking while sitting in the parking lot before the show. As I mention in my Dylan review, this one Outlaw date absolutely sold out, hard, and there is construction in the vicinity of the venue, so the promoter sent out an EVERYBODY PANIC email the day before and opened the parking lot at 1pm. I rolled in around 2:15, parked facing out as close to the exit as I could, and set up a chair and took out a book. But it was 80 fucking degrees, the lot was filling up quickly (see above) and so I just headed in once the initial rush was over. 

Southern Avenue takes their name for the road in Memphis that leads to Stax. I did not know that until sitting down to write this, but now it is glaringly, brilliantly appropriate. What I heard on the outside was gospel vocals and Pops Staples-influenced guitar, which is like dangling catnip in my direction. They were incredibly high energy, dialed in about as tight as possible without losing spontaneity, and an absolute delight. The crowd paid attention to them because it was impossible not to and also because they were great. I will 100% sign up for their mailing list and go see them on a headlining tour. They have a single out now and an album slated for release next year. They came back out into the crowd to watch Mellencamp and Bob from seats about fifth row center and were warmly welcomed by everyone around them, including women coming over to get selfies with them. 

This is not an easy opening slot, because you’re up against diehards of each performer and then the people who think it sounds like a good day out and bring eight of their friends and family and spend the evening drinking as much beer as possible. There was one of those groups two rows in front of me and two of the women drank at least 6 of those giant tallboys – at one point I lost count. I didn’t have the thing where someone was having a normal-volume level conversation near me, but I did have the dude who thought he was a Dylan expert and was going to announce the name of the song before each one and I thought I was going to die until either he stopped because he realized no one cared (the last one I heard was “Love Sick!”) or I managed to tune him out, somehow. 

This guy also asked me if I was writing down the setlist for setlist.fm because I was taking notes. middle finger emoji

The band are outfitted in uniform, white shirts, black vests, black pants. Mellencamp himself wears a boiler suit, a mechanic’s one piece jumpsuit. I started poking through interviews, trying to find if he talks about this anywhere but then I also realized it doesn’t even matter what the official explanation is. The presentation is obvious. It’s both showing up dressed out of respect for the audience and also that this is work, this is his job, he is showing up and doing the work. 

There’s a chapter in the Steve Wynn memoir where he talks about how Mellencamp tried to get Dream Syndicate to come out to Indiana to record, and then there’s also this infamous bootleg of the night that he played with Lou Reed at a club in Bloomington. “He was closer to me than I thought,” is what my notes say. I don’t believe that all music is great or that we have to love everything that comes out, and the rebellion against whatever becomes the status quo is good and necessary, but I also feel like, some of it was bullshit, maybe? Because sitting there watching this, it’s good, I’m enjoying it, and I know every single one of these songs. That’s because I listened to the radio and there was absolutely no escaping it. 

(I also remember the night in college where someone kept playing Mellencamp on the jukebox at one of the three bars that Fordham students hung out in [this was the Bronx, in the 80s, we’re lucky we had any] and someone in my group of friends walked over and unplugged it and when the bartender asked why, they said “no more John Cougar” and the bartender nodded his head in agreement.)

Lisa Germano is back playing in the band, and I wrote, “He figured out the violin player.” Bruce never did, Soozie doesn’t count, no he did not have an affair with Suki Lahav, I don’t buy that, email me if you want to get into this particular topic.

“What if this had ended up being Bruce’s journey” is the next note. That’s the difference between “Dancing in the Dark” going on Born in the USA and it not.

I realize that maybe 25 people in the audience knew that Mellencamp had just added “All Along the Watchtower” to the set, and then that Bob had added it in response, but mostly? I would have wanted to see this band play “Watchtower” if it was my band, and I could have them do that. And I downplayed it a little in the piece I wrote, but what I texted my friends was, “How many women have been allowed to play that solo?” Jesus Christ it is 2024 and we are still fighting.

There was definitely something about watching a sold-out audience in the Midwest singing “Small Town.” I’ve talked about Detroit audiences before, that as much as my friends here think they are lame they are exponentially more engaged and interested than any New York audience is, definitely these days. Generationally also, I was probably at the younger side of the tall part of the bell curve of this crowd. 

Mellencamp is making eye contact. He’s got two guitar players and he lets them do most of the work and he’s at the front of the stage. It’s more like soundcheck behavior than show behavior, but it’s clear that it’s important to him. During “Check It Out” he went over and handed the mic to a guy in the front row, who got out one line before saying, “I can’t” and handing it back. Mellencamp told the crowd that he did know the words, that he’d watched him sing every word to every song all night. At the end of the song he walked over to make sure dude was okay and then asked the crowd to applaud him anyway. I did find an interview where he talks about how he told his booking agent that he was done playing big places: “I told them that I was done playing to the gallery,” he says. “I’m just going to play theaters, the only place you can play to the front row. I don’t care about the money. I got enough money, and I don’t need more applause in my life.”

I liked seeing the obvious Mellencamp diehards who were standing up and singing and laser focused on the stage. Like, I see you! I did not like the woman who got hit with a beach ball (I cannot believe we are still fucking doing this) who then launched it at a guy standing up a couple of rows in front of her. If you care that much, stand up; if you don’t care, then let the people stand up for their guy, come on. 

Before “Jack and Diane,” he says that he wrote this song when he was 25, he didn’t like it that much, he’s still not in love with it, but the audience likes it. The entire place stands up with the first line, so he nailed that take.

If you haven’t seen Mellencamp, his voice is just thrashed, years of smoking have taken it apart. And he still smokes, and came out onstage smoking a cigarette, which I imagine is a gesture he is fond of. He’s figured out how to make it still work for him onstage, which is that he just steamrolls through the songs and lets his voice do what it’s going to do, or at least that’s what it looked like for me. The songs are still very recognizable despite the deterioration of his voice, which is the difference between him and Bob, although even with this Outlaw setlist I felt like he’d done a little – shaping – to make the songs more recognizable to non-diehards. But I also wish he’d go for a car ride with Bruce because he is going to have some voice challenges coming, especially since we’re scheduled through 2025, and right now he’s still pushing through it. Just make some changes, dude.

Right about the time the set got to “Rain on the Scarecrow” I wondered, after spending so much time with the Steve Van Zandt documentary, whether Mellencamp’s politics and/or his advocacy for Farm Aid, had a similar dampening effect on his career. Does this mean I am turning into a conspiracy theorist? These days, I just am more willing to believe that someone somewhere made a decision that they didn’t want to have a guy writing and singing popular songs criticizing big industry on their label. They could let a contract lapse, they could not work a record much if at all. It has happened for less insidious reasons, like people leaving labels. 

She calls me ‘baby’
She calls everybody ‘baby’

This is an underrated lyric.

He’s got a woman and a black man in his band, this is not new but it is also not accidental, and honestly, given where we are right now in this country I have even more respect for people who have done this consistently.

Bob going on after this, lol - I think I wrote this during “Lonely Ol’ Night” or “Pink Houses.” I do know that I had the set times written down because I wanted to make sure to have time to trek to the bathroom before Bob, and all of a sudden he’s up there saying ‘Thank you’ and I look at my phone and it was 7:15, his set was scheduled from 6:15-7:30, and I had lost track of time. It was a good set! 

I ran up the stairs during “Hurts so Good” (I was in the 16th row, so it was a hike) and got to the aisle between pavilion and lawn and my friends, it was a fucking party everywhere you looked, women were dancing on their way into the restroom and kept dancing on their way out. That is an accomplishment for an entertainer. They were good songs, they’re still good songs, and I’d honestly try to see him if he played nearby in the future. I think I might appreciate it.