This is the first in a series of posts leading up to John Mellencamp’s Nov. 8 and 11 performances at Clowes Hall and Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University. A preview of the shows will be published in the Nov. 7 edition of The Sunday Star.
If you caught Bob Dylan’s Halloween show in Indianapolis and you’re going to a John Mellencamp performance next week, look for details the latter has borrowed from the former.
Dylan, for instance, displays the Academy Award he won for “Things Have Changed” — a song that appeared in 2000 film “Wonder Boys” – onstage, perched on either a guitar or keyboard speaker.
Mellencamp also showcases a small statue — a representation of Jesus Christ that happens to be a piggy bank — on his guitar speaker.
Since 2002, a member of Dylan’s road crew has introduced the Minnesota native with this cliched encapsulation of his career (the rushed reading on Halloween was perhaps the lowlight of the entire evening):
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the poet laureate of rock ‘n’ roll. The voice of the promise of the ’60s counterculture. The guy who forced folk into bed with rock. Who donned makeup in the ’70s and disappeared into a haze of substance abuse. Who emerged to find Jesus. Who was written off as a has-been by the end of the ’80s, and who suddenly shifted gears — releasing some of the strongest music of his career beginning in the late ’90s. Ladies and gentlemen, Columbia recording artist Bob Dylan.”
For Mellencamp’s new “No Better Than This,” a similarly structured recorded introduction cites his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame credentials and characterizes him as “poet laureate of the interstates.”
The two musicians have spent plenty of time together lately, as Mellencamp toured as Dylan’s supporting act during the summers of 2009 and 2010.
I interviewed Mellencamp Oct. 28 in Bloomington, where he launched the “No Better Than This” tour the following night (at left is an Associated Press image from that show). Between his afternoon and evening rehearsals at IU Auditorium, we chatted in his aluminum Airstream trailer — and I couldn’t resist asking about the Seymour native’s time on the road with Dylan.
“He comes in this trailer and sits and gabs every night,” Mellencamp said, noting their shared pastime of smoking cigarettes. Mellencamp favors American Spirits in light-blue packaging. I neglected to ask about Dylan’s brand.
“I’ve learned a lot from Bob, and I’ve laughed a lot with Bob,” the 59-year-old said. Dylan, on course to celebrate his 70th birthday in May, once critiqued his supporting act’s stage banter, Mellencamp said — even sharing this “Odd Couple”-esque dramatization:
Dylan: John, are you going to tell that stupid story tonight about you being in a bar band?
Mellencamp: What do you care?
Dylan: Change it. I’m sick of hearing it.
Mellencamp: You’re not backstage listening to me.
Dylan: Of course, I’m listening. You know maybe you should just quit talking altogether.
Mellencamp: You mean like you?
Dylan: Yeah, I don’t talk to the audience. If they don’t come to me, then they miss the show.
Mellencamp: I’m not like that, Bob. I can’t lean on “Rainy Day Women.” I kind of have to reach out to the audience.
Dylan, as noted in this current column and video by Nuvo’s Steve Hammer, is a bit of a ghost when he’s not onstage. Unless you’re “Pawn Stars” go-fer Austin “Chumlee” Russell, who seemingly bumped into Zimmy on an episode of the History Channel show that aired in September. Do you buy this video as being legit?
Tomorrow: The film that opens every date of the “No Better Than This” tour.http://blogs.indystar.com/sounds/2010/11/04/mellencamp-and-dylan-traveling-companions/
