{"id":16729,"date":"2018-11-13T09:36:33","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T17:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16729"},"modified":"2018-11-13T11:25:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T19:25:04","slug":"mellencamp-bounces-back-to-success-after-a-slow-start-in-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/11\/13\/mellencamp-bounces-back-to-success-after-a-slow-start-in-victoria\/","title":{"rendered":"John Mellencamp bounces back to success after a slow start in Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a heart attack, three divorces, and a music career spanning four decades, John Mellencamp knows that, as he says in \u201cJack & Diane,\u201d \u201cLife goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.\u201d He perhaps even knows that better today than he did in the early \u201980s when he first wrote those legendary lyrics.<\/p>\n

The beginning of his concert at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on Monday night started slow; Mellencamp opted to start with a 25-minute film about his early life and creative process. While it was incredibly interesting and shone a light on the Indiana-born artist\u2019s many talents, it could have been half as long without losing any punch.<\/p>\n

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John Mellencamp brought his heartland rock to Victoria last night (Photo by Amy Sussman\/Associated Press).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When he picked up his guitar, \u201cLawless Times\u201d\u2014although catchy and well-written\u2014brought out a cringe-worthy silence in the arena loud enough to hear a pin drop during the bars of rest that came before the chorus. \u201cMinutes to Memories\u201d received surprisingly mediocre cheers, despite Mellencamp finding his groove.<\/p>\n

Just as I was thinking we were all in for a disappointing night from a father of American heartland rock, Mellencamp turned on his sassy side: he dropped a few humorous political anecdotes and told a heckler to go yell in the hall because some people want to hear music.<\/p>\n

The evening found new energy after that. Mellencamp started in on the classics; he launched into favourable renditions of \u201cLonely ol\u2019 Night,\u201d \u201cSmall Town,\u201d and an acoustic version of \u201cJack & Diane\u201d that was well received, but still didn\u2019t seem to quite bridge the gap between singer and audience. That said, he still caught the young American working-class spirit in his performance.<\/p>\n

The show took a creative turn after an incredible violin solo and a particularly heartfelt version of \u201cEasy Target,\u201d a protest ballad centered around Mellencamp\u2019s thoughts on America that he released on the day of Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n

Both were passionate, eerie, and unexpected; he then switched gears again, turning back to his raspy heartland roots with \u201cPaper in Fire,\u201d and \u201cPink Houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highlight of the night came with \u201cHurts So Good\u201d; by that point, everyone was on their feet, whistling and dancing in the aisle.<\/p>\n

It was, by and large, a really solid night of classic rock. The sludgy start was hard to recover from, but storytelling and musical talent redeemed the show to make for a damn good foot-tapping evening of rock and roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a heart attack, three divorces, and a music career spanning four decades, John Mellencamp knows that, as he says in \u201cJack & Diane,\u201d \u201cLife goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.\u201d He perhaps even knows that better today than he did in the early \u201980s when he first wrote those legendary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16729"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16734,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16729\/revisions\/16734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}