Rolling Stone Farm Aid Reviews

Farm Aid 2014's 8 Biggest Musical Surprises

Sundown and John Mellencamp's set time were one in the same, the time when everyone was several drinks in and soaked from the rain, humidity and twilight of heat-induced delirium. This may explain why the crowd behaved like a diverting, drunk donkey, plodding along towards a carrot of Cougar classics from the Seventies and Eighties, blindly passing by the adult-contempo Appalachian tracks from his new Plain Spoken album at the beginning of the set, too hungry to wait for the hits. The original video backdrop was hi-res green beans and towering silos before the band started churning out the classics like "Jack and Diane" and "Small Town." When the massive video screen suddenly transitioned to 20-foot-high flames against a black backdrop, the flame-broiled feel took us from a Seventies roadhouse vibe to a Burger King commercial, and everyone was instantly hungrier, sweatier, or more delirious. Things only got hotter when his high-spirited violin/fiddle player Miriam Sturm went toe-to-toe with Mellencamp on a rumbly rendition of "Pink Houses." All the world was right on the closer "Cherry Bomb," when the rock icon proclaimed, "You can dance your problems away," before doing a spry little soft-shoe routine across the stage, spurring everyone around to also attempt to dance their woes away.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/farm-aid-2014-pictures-performances-20140915#ixzz3DRqbRP5v

Mellencamp Previews His Upcoming Tour

In late January, John Mellencamp is kicking off a grueling 80-date North America tour to support his new LP Plain Spoken. Backed by his longtime touring band, Mellencamp previewed the trek by opening with a pair of new cuts: "Lawless Times" and "Troubled Man." Just when it seemed like he was losing the crowd with the unfamiliar tunes, he kicked off a string of eight consecutive 1980s hits with "Check It Out." A solo acoustic "Jack and Diane" had the entire place screaming along to every word, and the crowd cracked up when he modified the lyrics of "Small Town" to address his two divorces since he wrote the song. Midway through, he blasted through a powerful rendition of "Rain on the Scarecrow" that summed up the Farm Aid cause better than any speech he could have possibly delivered.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/live-reviews/farm-aid-2014s-10-best-musical-moments-20140915#ixzz3DRqz9Qvh