John Mellencamp, VEGA Copenhagen, Denmark 24/6-11.

The set-list:

1. Authority Song
2. No One Cares About Me
3. Death Letter
4. John Cockers
5. Walk Tall
6. The West End
7. Check It Out
8. Save Some Time to Dream
9. Cherry Bomb
10. Don’t Need This Body
11. Easter Eve
12. Born Under a Bad Sign (Booker T. Jones)
13. Jackie Brown
14. Longest Days
15. Jack & Diane
16. Small Town
17. Rain on the Scarecrow
18. Paper in Fire
19. The Real Life
20. If I Die Sudden
21. Pink Houses
22. R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A

9/10

It was a BIT of a slow start, because they showed a 1 hour and 20 min. movie about the making of Mellencamp's newest album, recorded in SUN STUDIOS with T Bone Burnett as a producer and after that a 20 min. break, so me and my buddy, Peter, spend most of that time at the bar, drinking good danish beer. A LOT of it!!

It was completely sold out, but there were only room for 1,500 people. They could probably have sold twice as many ticket's.

It's 19 years, since Mellencamp gave a concert in Denmark, but it was the first time, I saw him. I was a fan in the 80's, so I was hoping, that he would play many songs from that periode, and he did.
He played all the right songs, as far as I'm concerned: "Check it out", "Jackie Brown", "Small Town" and "Rain on the Scarecrow", but he also played a lot of songs from his latest album "No Better Than This" from 2010. Look out for that album in next week's NMC. It's a pretty good album.
Mellencamp and his band were AWESOME last night!! MAN, they could play!! Especially Miriam Sturm on violin and Andy York on guitar. As I said, they also played some newer songs, and one of the best was "Save Some Time To Dream", but also "Longest Days" from the 2008-album "Life, Death, Love And Freedom". Mellencamp played that alone on the stage. Sometimes the band would leave him alone, and sometimes only the violinist and the Harmonica-player would support him, but the best times for me, was when the whole band played. Mellencamp told us, that his Grandmother, shortly before her death, she became 100 years old, and appears on the "Scarecrow"-album, that "remember life is short, even in it's longest days". Mellencamp looked a LITTLE old, and he is gonna be 60 years old later in 2011, and at the start of the concert, he was a LITTLE rusty in his voice, but it became a LOT better later on.
At one time Mellencamp said "I don't give a f... about the past", but luckily they played a great deal of songs from that past, also "Jack And Diane", that did'nt really sound like it use to do, it actually sounded better with that band.
At the end of the concert, Mellencamp picked one from the audience to come up on stage and finish off "R.O.C.K. US". It was a party at the end, but sadly they did'nt play an encore. It was suddently over, but it was probably the best concert I've seen, since.......hmmmm...Guns'n'Roses in 1991.

Oh, one funny thing: At a time during the concert, I had to go to take a piss, a lot of beers, you know, and I ran literally speaking into the future danish King, Crown-Prince Frederik. He's actually a cool guy, with tatoos and he's got a good taste in music, I knew that. Damn, I should have told him about CLASSIC ROCK BOTTOM. Oh well.

Here's a couple of video's from last night:

Wait 30 sec., and the lights will go on: "Check it out" with the whole band.

"Jackie Brown", solo with only the violinist: