August 1, 2001 John Mellencamp
It was the first live experience of a John Cougar Mellencamp concert for me. The venue was at the California Mid-State Fair, which is between San Luis Obispo and Salinas, and was crowded by plenty of spectators, despite being in the countryside and moreover a weekday evening.
When I got there, I looked for the parking lot. Local people used their plot of ground for extraordinary parking lots and some places charged $20.00, but I could find $5.00 parking.
There was a racing car, maybe John's, in the front of the venue, and also we could see a Ferris wheel, 'cause it was in the amusement park.
Several minutes past 9:00PM, the lights were turned off and we waited for about 5 minutes, and then, I could hear the intro of the opening song. I was amazed by the opening song, which was The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter". John put on a white shirt and looked so young although he has a grandson.
The 3rd song, "Jack & Diane" made the audience excited, of course me too. While the song was played, John turned his mike towards the audience, and everybody sang the part of the song, "Oh Yeah! life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone!" instead of John. In the first half of the show, John and his band successively played their most popular numbers: "Check It Out", "Paper In Fire", "Crumblin' Down" etc...
The band played so fabulously, especially the violinist and female backup vocalists. An African American backup vocalist sang the start of the song that was my fondness "Small Town" and also John's singing and band's playing was marvelous.
I think, in this show, the band's sound was perfect in spite of being early in his concert tour, except that John made a little mistake when he sang the beginning of "Authority Song", the audience laughed, but it was OK.
The last 2 songs, which were dedicated to America, were particularly wonderful. Everyone in the audience sang and shouted "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.", and I was impressed with the touching last song "Pink House".
I've only seen his show on VCR or TV, like, for example, in "Farm Aid", which was sort of sober country rock, so first I thought that his concert was a comparatively restrained show, but actually I felt that the real live show was a hard driving rock'n'roll show. I was worked up for a long time.
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