![]() Mellencamp returned with a run of hits, starting with the ominous warning of “Rain on the Scarecrow” - another appropriate song for the fair. He left the stage for his fiddle player and accordionist to play an instrumental medley of his early John Cougar hits, including “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” and “I Need a Lover.” Mellencamp returned to the present with three songs from his excellent new disc “Sad Clowns and Hillbillies.” The first two were offered as duets with opening act Carleen Carter: The thumping and gritty “Grandview,” Carter singing far more emphatically than she did during her own set, and the fun and bouncy gospel number “My Soul’s Got Wings.” Then he did “Easy Target.” “This next song I’ve been singing for a long time, and I’ll keep singing for as long as you want to hear it,” Mellencamp told the crowd of 4,232, introducing the song. ![]() ![]() Then his biggest hit, “Jack & Diane,” with its prescient lyrics, “Oh yeah, life goes on/Long after the thrill of living is gone,” done alone on an acoustic guitar, with the crowd gleefully singing the choruses. “Check It Out” was even more wistful, as Mellencamp sang, “Is this all that we’ve learned about living?” and a mournful guitar and soul-searing violin soared behind him. Then he dove into two of the hits fans clearly wanted to hear. ![]() ![]() But he played it far more rugged and rocky, perhaps jaded by time.īut he followed it with the growled Delta blues of Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passing,” then a wicked, dirty-groove version of his hit “Pop Singer” - just in case you didn’t believe he “never wanted to write no pop songs.” The first hit song Mellencamp played from his 1980s heyday was the most appropriate for the location: “Small Town,” an invocation of love for the agrarian life the fair represents. And a great version of “Minutes to Memories,” a minor hit from 1986, showed just how deep Mellencamp’s catalog is. ![]()
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