Hi everyone,
I am new to the community but I hope that you can help me. I am trying to find out some information about the John Mellencamp show that was in Birmingham, Al in 1984. I believe this was the first date on the Uh-Huh tour but I may be wrong about that. I went to the show with an amazing girl, it was our first “date” and it was a pivotal point in my life.
A little backstory… The girl that I took to the show was my sister’s best friend from middle school through high school. She was two years younger than me and I had been madly in love with her from the time she was 12 (I was only 14 so it wasn’t a freak show!). She had no clue because I was absolutely tongue tied when it came to her.
So, after years of pining away for her, I finally screwed up my courage in 1984 (my senior year, her freshman year) to ask her out. We were going to the Uh-Huh show in Birmingham. I’ll never forget picking her up at her house the evening of the show, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen and I was struck dumb by the sight of her. We went to the concert (it was phenomenal! JM opened the show buy doing three or four Elvis songs to warm up. It was the first tour with him using Mellencamp and he talked about his fight with the record company about it.) We had an absolute blast! But, I was so awed by her that I was a little distant (even though I had been around her nearly every day at school and almost every weekend at my house –she spent nearly every weekend staying with my sister). We only talked a little bit. I never even tried to kiss her goodnight. Probably because I was so awkward, I never got up the courage to ask her out again.
Over the years she has been the one girl that would always pop back into my head. “Wonder what ever happened to Tracy…” “Wonder where Tracy wound up…” I’ve always seen her as the one great missed opportunity in my life. The one unfulfilled moment in time. Spin forward from 1984 to 2009. Tracy and I reconnect (thanks Facebook!) and chat a couple of times about old times and our “date.” It turns out, Tracy thought that I only asked her because I didn’t have another date and she didn’t even consider it a date! She had no clue that I liked her, or that I was nervous around her, or that I considered her the “one that got away” (no, I didn’t creep her out by telling her that right away!). She and I had both had productive lives, gotten married, had kids, gotten divorced, etc… Move forward to last year, I was newly divorced and had finally decided to tell Tracy how I had always felt. I was blown away to discover that she had a big crush on me for nearly as long as I had on her. She said she made a point to come to our house as often as was possible to see me and she always tried to get “invited” to our house on weekends just to be around me! My low self-confidence has really cost me the opportunity of being with her.
Well, as I am no longer the shy kid with low self-confidence, I was determined to ask her out –even though we lived in different states. On January 25th 2015 we had our official first date (she was more beautiful than I remembered and that first goodnight kiss was more amazing than I ever dared dream!) and we have been together ever since! Since that night there have been many 8 hour drives, many two hour plane trips, and hundreds of hours of phone calls. On May 31st 2015, my birthday, I asked Tracy to marry me and she immediately said yes! It turns out that sometimes you DO get a second chance at the brass ring and this time I didn’t miss it!
Ok, so there’s the backstory… You can see why that one concert was so pivotal in my life. What I am trying to find is first, what the date of the show was. Second, I am looking for any kind of memorabilia from that tour (a tour book –if they existed, showing the dates, a tour t-shirt showing the dates, anything like that), or the big banana, a tick stub from the show. I have scoured the web looking for information and artifacts and have had no success. I want to gather up a few things and make a wedding present for her/us. There are a few things from the Uh-huh tour on eBay but nothing that directly ties to the Birmingham show –and that’s what I really want to find.
First, if you read this entire story, thank you very much for your time. Second, If there is anyone out there who might have some information, please let me know. Third, if you happen to have anything from that show or tour that ties to Birmingham and are willing to part with it, please let me know and let’s see if we can work out a deal.
Thanks again everyone!
ETSJ
Here is your date! Thanks for sharing your story!
Tour Date City
Uh-Huh 03/05/84 Florence, AL
Uh-Huh 03/06/84 Knoxville, TN
Uh-Huh 03/07/84 Atlanta, GA
Uh-Huh 03/08/84 Dothan, AL
Uh-Huh 03/09/84 Birmingham, AL
Uh-Huh 03/10/84 Memphis, TN
Uh-Huh 03/11/84 Nashville, TN
Uh-Huh 03/12/84 Louisville, KY
Uh-Huh 03/13/84 Columbus, OH
Uh-Huh 03/14/84 Dayton, OH
Uh-Huh 03/15/84 Cleveland, OH
Uh-Huh 03/16/84 Indianapolis, IN
Uh-Huh 03/17/84 W. Lafayette, IN
Uh-Huh 03/19/84 St. Louis, MO
Uh-Huh 03/20/84 Kansas City, MO
Uh-Huh 03/21/84 Danville, IL
Uh-Huh 03/22/84 Chicago, IL
Uh-Huh 03/23/84 Minneapolis, MN
Uh-Huh 03/24/84 Minneapolis, MN
Uh-Huh 03/25/84 Des Moines, IA
Uh-Huh 03/26/84 Davenport, IA
Uh-Huh 03/28/84 Terre Haute, IN
Uh-Huh 03/29/84 Detroit, MI
Uh-Huh 03/30/84 Pittsburgh, PA
Uh-Huh 03/31/84 Binghamton, NY
Uh-Huh 04/01/84 Hartford, CT
Uh-Huh 04/02/84 Albany, NY
Uh-Huh 04/03/84 Boston, MA
Uh-Huh 04/04/84 Poughkeepsie, NY
Uh-Huh 04/05/84 New York, NY
Uh-Huh 04/06/84 Philadelphia, PA
Uh-Huh 04/07/84 Washington, DC
