FarmAid II, 1986

[Tony58]

I was part of the electrical crew that helped put together the FarmAid II concert at Manor Downs in 1986. I have a ball cap I wanted John to autograph, unfortunately, John had apparently left the venue before I could get him to sign it.

Notable signatures:
Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Emmylou Harris, Nicolette Larson, George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, William Lee Golden, John Schneider, Mickey Raphael,
Mark Miller, David and Howard Bellamy...

It would be great if I could finally get John's signature since he was right along side with Willie and Neil in putting this thing together...a great cause for American farmers!

[MrSickboy50]

Try sending him a letter. It worked for me twice. Sending a cap might be more difficult so I'd ask somebody else if they knew if you could send a cap or not. If you flatten it enough it may be okay to send. You  don't wanba send big and bulky items.

[Tony58]

I had thought about that, but being it's the only one I know of and with Nicolette, Stevie Ray and George not being with us anymore, I'd hate to chance it being "lost" along the way.
I was at the Niagara Falls show on Saturday, but not knowing the lay of the land there or I would have at least attempted a backstage "excursion"

Many good memories of FarmAid, still have my passes, a couple t-shirts and of course the ball cap.

Thanks for the reply!

[MrSickboy50]

Oh I totally get the struggle you are having. To lose an item like that would be utterly horrible.
But... I can't imagine that they would just throw your cap away if you sent it in hopes of it to get signed. If they opened up the package and saw that you went through all this effort to send it, I don't think they'd just say "nope" and throw it out. They might as well go through and get it signed.
However, reading the instructions again on how to mail items to John is interesting, because it says, "Please do not send any item that is a one of a kind." So would your cap be one of a kind? I would ask somebody who works for John to verify what that means. The whole contact page is here: http://www.mellencamp.com/contact.html

It's a 50-50% chance with your cap. There's only one other way I can think of to get it signed. If you go to any of his shows, stay after the show by his tour busses, becuase he sometimes comes out to sign a few things. That's sorta rare, but he has done it a couple times when he's in the mood and the audience was nice to him at the show. Since he doesn't have backstage passes or any other methods to really meet him, it's pretty difficult to actually meet the man. I have tried 3 times on the Plain Spoken tour to wait for John outside the show, and he has not come. But I did meet his violin player, Miriam.
Don't lose hope, I'm sure you could meet him someday or find a way to get that cap signed. It's not like you're asking for John to sign 100 records, it's just a ball cap. At last resort, you could just send in a CD cover or something like I did and just keep it beside your ball cap to go "with it". It's still cool to have. Good luck!

[TonyBClubManager]

Oh I totally get the struggle you are having. To lose an item like that would be utterly horrible.
But... I can't imagine that they would just throw your cap away if you sent it in hopes of it to get signed. If they opened up the package and saw that you went through all this effort to send it, I don't think they'd just say "nope" and throw it out. They might as well go through and get it signed.
However, reading the instructions again on how to mail items to John is interesting, because it says, "Please do not send any item that is a one of a kind." So would your cap be one of a kind? I would ask somebody who works for John to verify what that means. The whole contact page is here: http://www.mellencamp.com/contact.html

It's a 50-50% chance with your cap. There's only one other way I can think of to get it signed. If you go to any of his shows, stay after the show by his tour busses, becuase he sometimes comes out to sign a few things. That's sorta rare, but he has done it a couple times when he's in the mood and the audience was nice to him at the show. Since he doesn't have backstage passes or any other methods to really meet him, it's pretty difficult to actually meet the man. I have tried 3 times on the Plain Spoken tour to wait for John outside the show, and he has not come. But I did meet his violin player, Miriam.
Don't lose hope, I'm sure you could meet him someday or find a way to get that cap signed. It's not like you're asking for John to sign 100 records, it's just a ball cap. At last resort, you could just send in a CD cover or something like I did and just keep it beside your ball cap to go "with it". It's still cool to have. Good luck!

We have always advocated against mailing one of a kind items to JM because sadly mistakes do happen in the mail/shipping. Items get damaged or lost. Things can get misplaced in John's office, things do happen.

It's not completely uncommon at a show to connect with someone on John's touring team and give the item to them to take back for JM to sign and have them bring it back.