Taping of A&E's Private Sessions In New York City Tuesday, December 7th

A peek behind the scenes of a stop during John's week in NYC for Community board readers!

The day after taking the stage at the Late Show with David Letterman John headed to 45th street in New York City to tape an exclusive sit down interview and acoustic performance for the A&E TV show Private Sessions.

John arrived around 10:30am sporting his full beard and wearing his 2010 No Better Than This tour suit. Andy and Miriam joined John for the acoustic set. Andy in a suit and Miriam wearing one of her beautiful long skirts she wore on the No Better Than This tour. John's team of technical staff were already on hand making sure everything was ready to go when John arrived. Andy sound checked his own guitar and also checked out John's for him.

John went immediately into the stage area upon arrival and sound checked a Blind Willie Mctell song "Delia" as he did the previous day before he hit the stage at the CBS studio for Late Show with David Lettermen. The song wasn't part of the set list but John has been messing around with it. I wonder if he is thinking about incorporating it into the next tour set list? The A&E cameras was rolling during sound check so we are hopeful to be able to get a copy of it for Mellencamp.com in the near future!

John was joined by Andy on stage for two songs - "Longest Days" and "Thinking About You" and Miriam was on hand for a intense performance of "Jackie Brown." John sang "Small Town" and "Save Some Time To Dream" alone as he has done on the part tour. Hopefully all the songs will make the final cut for the show!

The sit down interview followed John's acoustic set with a quick change of the set and a break for John to have a smoke into a living room style feel with two chairs and a coffee table with the A&E Private Sessions host Lynn Hoffman. After a couple of technical microphone issues John was finally able to sit and talk to Lynn in a one on one interview. Many topics were discussed from the recording of No Better Than This, Farm Aid, the Dalai Lama, to being baptized in Savannah, GA amongst other things. There were some very comical moments within the interview and hopefully all make the cut! As we watched the interview taking place you could tell the host was quite taken with John. Who isn't!

The stage area was very small and cameramen and sound guys were everywhere so it was a little hard to get a decent photo of the stage area but we were able to grab a couple. Below is the stage area where the performance and interview took place. This revealing interview and performance is expected to air on January 23, 2011. Here is the link to the Private Sessions website. http://www.aetv.com/private-sessions/index.jsp