John Mellencamp: Plain Spoken from the Chicago Theatre
Eagle Rock Entertainment
http://www.mellencamp.com/news.html?n_id=2944

Rating: A

John Mellencamp has released a pretty gosh darn cool documentary/concert film/CD…that is unlike any this writer has ever seen before.  

While never a huge fan of the small town dwelling, wanna-be Springsteen, I have to admit that once this concert started…and John began speaking over the music…directly to me…in a soft, yet gruff…fun yet stern voice…I was hooked. In fact, I was addicted.

It was shocking how much John really opened up…talking about his life in a way that I never expected. This experience proved that he is way cooler than I imagined….way more selfish than I thought...way more dedicated to artistic endeavors than I realized…and way more of man than I ever knew.

I was stuck to the my chair waiting for his next word.

Sometimes I agreed with him and sometimes I thought, “What an ass” or “What arrogance.” Other times I was misty eyed at his painful upbringing or the loss of his grandmother, who raised him.

Mellencamp really proved his worth to me with this honest diatribe of who, and what, he is, as well as what makes him tick. 

As if this were not enough…if you just want music you can shut him off and watch and listen to the entire the concert. The show is good, too. The band is solid and John struts his stuff…a bit more blues oriented than he maybe should…but I now understand why he refuses to live in the past and stay with the same ol same ol.

Missing from this concert are the early hits…which I suppose he does not care for at this stage of his creativity. It is a shame as the innocence and spark of songs like “Ain’t Even Done with the Night,” “Hurts So Good” and “Jack & Diane” are in the musical DNA of John’s first fans…maybe he is too grown up now to sing about such silly sentiment. Despite these early classics being omitted the concert is great though. For me, the aforementioned songs were missed…for a bigger fan, or younger fan, their absence may not even be noticed. 

Still…this sucker is not about the concert. It is about John Mellencamp. The country boy from Indiana wears his motives on his sleeve throughout. Some are honorable…and some…not as much. Mellencamp strives to be genuine…often to the point of damn near losing himself in the process...or at least losing the shadow man he allows us to see onstage.

He never loses site of winning though.

He is tough as nails and smart as a whip…and there is no lack of arrogance either…in fact…it looks good on him.

At the end of the day the small town boy done good…really good. You will watch this one more than once. 

Bravo!

DVD & CD Track Listing
1. Lawless Times
2. Troubled Man
3. Minutes to Memories
4. Small Town
5. Stones in My Passway
6. Pop Singer
7. Check It Out
8. Longest Days
9. The Full Catastrophe
10. My Soul's Got Wings
11. Overture
12. Rain on the Scarecrow
13. Paper in Fire
14. Authority Song
15. Pink Houses
16. Cherry Bomb
Bonus Features
The entire concert without the voiceover.

By Jeb “Hand to Hold Onto” Wright