John Mellencamp wanted to make one thing perfectly clear to the audience at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco:
“The older I get, the less I give a (expletive),” proclaimed the 71-year-old Hoosier. “I don’t give a (expletive)”
Yet, Mellencamp doth protest too much, methinks.
You don’t put on a fiery show like he did on Friday and not give a (expletive). Indeed, his passion was burning red hot throughout the just-over-two-hour concert, as he charged through his songbook as convincingly as he has at any point during a recording career that dates back to the 1976 “Johnny Cougar” debut, “Chestnut Street Incident.”
He’s still championing social issues through song, both in his older numbers and in the new ones he’s been writing. His comments to the crowd on Friday — the first half of a two-night stand at the venue — made it clear just how much the art of songcraft still matters to him. And he works really hard to put on a show that matters both to the audience and to the musicians onstage.
So, yes, Mellencamp still cares. He cares a lot.
And he certainly cares about old movies. That was underscored during a 30-minute opening segment where snippets 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 big screen at the center of the stage. This tie-in with tour sponsor Turner Classic Movies, however, only worked moderately well, as the noise from the crowd made it really hard to hear the dialogue.
Right around 8:30 p.m., the screen lifted so that the crowd could see Mellencamp and his superb six-piece band launch into the deep cut “John Cockers” from 2008’s “Life, Death, Love and Freedom.” The star was also accompanied onstage by some creepy looking movie-star mannequins, including one that was supposed to be Brando and another that may have been Paul Newman — although, honestly, it looked as least as much like Pee Wee Herman from my vantage point.
From that soft-sell opener, Mellencamp quickly shifted into high gear for a great three-song run through “Paper in Fire,” “Minutes to Memories” and “Small Town,” the last of which truly got the crowd in party mode. All of those numbers hailed from Mellencamp’s two ’80s albums — “Scarecrow” and “The Lonesome Jubilee” — which rank as the finest outings in his entire catalog. In all, eight of the 21 songs performed were from those two records.
Mellencamp then gave fans time to catch their breath as he veered from the longtime fan favorites to some lesser-known cuts, including “Dear God,” “Jackie Brown” and “Don’t Need This Body.”
“I can tell by looking out at the audience that some of you people can relate to this,” Mellencamp said in the introduction of the old-age ode “Don’t Need This Body.”
The highlight of this middle section of the show came when he played “The Eyes of Portland,” a moving new song addressing the plight of the homeless that Mellencamp wrote after visiting the Oregon city a few years back.
“I just played Portland a couple of nights ago,” he said. “And it’s not getting any better.”
Mellencamp’s vocals were more gravelly than in his commercial prime, but that only seemed to heighten the authority and maturity of the lyrics. You believed every word he sang — a rare treat in 2023.
He also told plenty of intriguing stories, usually at the introduction of the song he was about to perform. He spoke of his family, noting how his grandma lived to be 100 and that his dad is 93.
“I ain’t gonna make it (that long) because I have been smoking since I was 10,” he said.
That eventually led into a beautiful story about a prayer session with his grandma that inspired “Longest Days,” a standout track from “Life, Death, Love and Freedom” that finds Mellencamp at his most John Prine-like.
“Deep down in your soul, you know you, you got no flame,” he sang. “And who knows then which way to go. Life is short, even in its longest days.”
The most humorous part of the evening was when Mellencamp launched into an acoustic version of “Jack & Diane,” which, of course, prompted a huge audience sing-along — just not a very accurate one.
The crowd ended up getting the lyrics wrong — which apparently is not a rarity at a Mellencamp show — so the song’s author stopped to chastise the chorus of hundreds.
“You guys must have been absent the day they taught Songwriting 101,” he said.
He ended up giving the fans another shot, which they nailed, carrying the chorus of “Jack & Diane” with such gusto that it might have been heard way over in the Sunset District.
Mellencamp then made one more movie connection — which, finally, ended up working out — as he played an audio recording of Joann Woodward dramatically reading the lyrics to his song “The Real Life” with live accompaniment on accordion and violin.
From that point on, it was (nearly) all hits as Mellencamp raced through such gems as “Rain on the Scarecrow” (which is the most powerful number in his entire catalog), “Lonely Ol’ Night,” “Crumblin’ Down” (combined with some of Them’s “Gloria”) and “Pink Houses.”
He closed the show with a big version of “Hurt So Good” — from 1982’s quintuple-platinum-selling “American Fool” — leaving the crowd feeling oh so good as it exited the lovely theater and walked out to Market Street.
Mellencamp also performs March 18 at Golden Gate Theatre. Visit broadwaysf.com for tickets and information.
John Mellencamp setlist:
1, “John Cockers”
2, “Paper in Fire”
3, “Minutes to Memories”
4, “Small Town”
5, “Hey God”
6, “Human Wheels”
7, “Don’t Need This Body”
8, “Jackie Brown”
9, “Check It Out”
10, “The Eyes of Portland”
11, “Longest Days”
12, “Jack & Diane”
13, “I Always Lie to Strangers”
14, “The Real Life”
15, “Rain on the Scarecrow”
16, “Lonely Ol’ Night”
17, “Crumblin’ Down”/”Gloria”
18, “Pink Houses”
19, “Chasing Rainbows”
20, “Cherry Bomb”
21, “Hurts So Good”
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