Farm Aid, Huntington Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN, 9-20-2025, Part 9: John Mellencamp

Here's the ninth album from the 2025 Farm Aid benefit concert. It's a set by John Mellencamp.

I'm getting close to the end posting all the sets from the concert that got enough votes in the poll I made. The later the festival, the bigger the names of the stars, and sometimes the longer the sets.

Like Dave Matthews, who was the star of the set just before this one, Mellencamp hadn't released an album for the two years prior to the concert. He mostly stuck to older hits, with the most recent song being "Lawless Times," released in 2014 on the album  "Plain Spoken."

This album is 38 minutes long. 

01 talk by Dave Matthews (John Mellencamp)
02 Lawless Times (John Mellencamp)
03 Small Town (John Mellencamp)
04 Paper in Fire (John Mellencamp)
05 talk (John Mellencamp)
06 Longest Days (John Mellencamp)
07 Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp)
08 Rain on the Scarecrow (John Mellencamp)
09 Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yNFYvjtu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7hkPw3vVmDYXsrM/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Various Artists- MusiCares Tribute to Neil Young, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-29-2010

So far, I've posted three MusiCares tribute concerts. I recently got a request to post this one honoring Neil Young sooner rather than later, so here it is. I still have five more to post after this, so look for those eventually as well.

Tons of talented stars showed up to sing their favorite Neil Young songs. There's a lot of great music here. Unfortunately, there's also some that's missing. This comes from a DVD of the event. Generally speaking, only a small crowd of the rich and famous attend these MusiCares concerts, so bootlegs of them are very rare. We know from media accounts that three songs were performed that weren't included on the DVD. Those are:

"Long May You Run" by Stephen Stills & Sheryl Crow 
"Comes a Time" by Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin & Lucinda Williams
"A Man Needs a Maid" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

If anyone has any of those so I can add them, please let me know. I found a video of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song recorded on a cell phone and posted on YouTube, but the sound quality is terrible. I'm guessing a lot of the banter between songs was cut out as well. Actor Jack Black was the emcee, but he's not really heard at all in the recording.

Typically, the person honored in these tributes performs a couple of songs at the end of the concert. But while Neil Young was there, and gave a short speech, it seems he didn't perform any songs. 

Here's a good account of the concert by someone who attended:

https://tinnitist.com/2023/08/11/back-stories-neil-youngs-musicares-tribute-jan-29-2010/

And Rolling Stone Magazine published a bunch of photos from it, here:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/musicares-person-of-the-year-tribute-to-neil-young-210831/red-hot-chili-peppers-2-19005/

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 Down by the River (John Mellencamp & T-Bone Burnett)
02 Mr. Soul (Ozomatli)
03 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Jackson Browne)
04 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Lady Antebellum)
05 Tell Me Why (Norah Jones)
06 Broken Arrow (Wilco)
07 Harvest Moon (Josh Groban)
08 Revolution Blues (Everest)
09 Cinnamon Girl (Dierks Bentley & Booker T. Jones)
10 Ohio (Ben Harper)
11 Rockin' in the Free World (Keith Urban, John Fogerty & Booker T. Jones)
12 The Losing End [When You're On] (Elvis Costello)
13 Lotta Love (Jason Mraz & Shawn Colvin)
14 The Needle and the Damage Done (Dave Matthews)
15 Heart of Gold (James Taylor)
16 Helpless (Elton John, Leon Russell, Neko Case & Sheryl Crow)
17 Human Highway (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
18 talk (Neil Young)
19 Rockin' in the Free World [Reprise] (Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BNxSXgS9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UhnFSv0eArgOnvZ/file

The cover is from this exact concert. From left to right: Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Shawn Colvin, and James Taylor.

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Billy Joel, D.A.R. Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, 11-19-2014

Here's another "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" award concert. This one from 2014 honors Billy Joel.

This follows the usual format of these concerts. First, some guest stars performed cover versions of songs by the honoree. Then there was an award presentation, and a speech by the honoree. Finally, the honoree performed a couple of songs to end the concert. There were a couple of twists this time, however. One is that the person to give a speech leading to Joel's speech was none other than Sonia Sotomayor, one of the justices of the U.S. supreme court. That's pretty unusual behavior for a supreme court justice, but I guess she must be a really big Billy Joel fan. The other twist is that Joel played five of his own songs, instead of the usual two or three.

It's unfortunate that the emcee for the concert was Kevin Spacey, due to his sex scandals that pretty much destroyed his career. But those scandals weren't reported on until 2017, three years after this concert. Another disappointment is that Paul McCartney didn't actually perform a song. Instead, he just sent a video message praising Joel. I noticed he would do the exact same thing for the Gershwin Prize concert for Elton John and Bernie Taupin in 2024.

Sadly, this may be the last of these Gershwin concerts I post until I can find more of them. I have most of the concert honoring Burt Bacharach, but I'm missing a couple of songs, so I'm still waiting on posting that. Otherwise, if anyone has any of the others, please let me know so I can share them. That especially goes for the two (Carole King and Smokey Robinson) that seem to only be available to people who pay for a PBS pass that's only available in you live in Wisconsin.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 talk (Kevin Spacey)
02 The Longest Time (Boyz II Men)
03 Lullaby [Goodnight, My Angel] (LeAnn Rimes)
04 It's Still Rock and Roll to Me (Gavin DeGraw)
05 talk (emcee)
06 She's Always a Woman (Josh Groban with Sharon Isbin)
07 talk (Michael Feinstein)
08 She's Got a Way (Natalie Maines)
09 talk (John Mellencamp)
10 Allentown (John Mellencamp)
11 talk (Paul McCartney)
12 talk (emcee)
13 New York State of Mind (Tony Bennett)
14 talk (Sonia Sotomayor)
15 talk (Billy Joel)
16 Movin' Out [Anthony's Song] (Billy Joel)
17 Vienna (Billy Joel)
18 talk (Billy Joel)
19 Miami 2017 [I've Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway] (Billy Joel)
20 You May Be Right (Billy Joel)
21 talk (Kevin Spacey)
22 Piano Man (Billy Joel & Everyone [Edit])

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zGtLvUp6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/cQJZPngXIkAhzJX/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. I'm not sure who the two men behind him are. If anyone knows, let me know so I can add that information.

John Mellencamp - VH-1 Storytellers, Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL, 10-1-1998

The "VH-1 Storytellers" flood continues with an episode featuring John Mellencamp.

In October 1998, just a few days after this concert, Mellencamp released a studio album simply titled "John Mellencamp." Unfortunately for him, it marked the start of point in his career with lower sales. His previous ten albums sold at least a million copies in the U.S., and he's sold over 30 million in his career. But this album would only go gold (sales of 500,000), and he hasn't bested that ever since.

However, only two of the songs performed here are from that album: "Eden Is Burning" and "I'm Not Running Anymore."

Once again, we somehow got lucky, because this appears to be a soundboard bootleg of the full performance instead of just the 45 minutes or so of the actual TV episode. I don't know how, but that's happened quite a few times for this TV show. Mellencamp talked quite a lot between songs, pretty much explaining his entire music career and personal development through his life. 

The only song officially released from this concert is "Jack and Diane," which appeared on a various artists compilation of Storytellers performances.

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.

01 talk (John Mellencamp)
02 Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp)
03 talk (John Mellencamp)
04 Eden Is Burning (John Mellencamp)
05 talk (John Mellencamp)
06 Crumblin' Down (John Mellencamp)
07 talk (John Mellencamp)
08 Small Town (John Mellencamp)
09 talk (John Mellencamp)
10 I'm Not Running Anymore (John Mellencamp)
11 talk (John Mellencamp)
12 Pop Singer (John Mellencamp)
13 talk (John Mellencamp)
14 Minutes to Memories (John Mellencamp)
15 talk (John Mellencamp)
16 Jackie Brown (John Mellencamp)
17 talk (John Mellencamp)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BBfVaS9w

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/h3W6bp368T736Ow/file

I couldn't find a really good cover photo from this exact concert. So instead I used one from an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in November 1998.

John Mellencamp - Timothy White's Rockstars, Belmont Mall Studios, Belmont, IN, 7-10-1987

Rcently, I searched to see if I could find any BBC performances by John Mellencamp. I came up blank - he probably haven't performed in Britain much. But in the search, I did find a really great American radio show performance he did in 1987, near the height of his fame.

"Timothy White's Rockstars" is a radio show broadcast on a US radio network. I've already posted a show from that featuring Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi. It a good show in that it mixes in live performances (without a studio audience) with extensive talking. What I've done here is I've cut the talking way down. I've removed all the talking by DJ Timothy White, for instance. I also got rid of a couple of long interview segments with John Mellencamp. But I kept Mellencamp's comments that were directly relevant to the songs being played. With some clever editing, I think the result is it seems as if this was a concert (with no audience) and some banter before each song. That's what I was aiming for, anyway.

I used the audio editing program Spleeter for some other editing. For instance, I removed a couple of cases where the DJ started talking a few seconds before a song ended. I also boosted the lead vocals in some cases. So, technically speaking, pretty much every track here should have "[Edit]" in their titles. But I saved that for just one song, the instrumental "Walk, Don't Run," which had really drastic editing in it. The DJ Timothy White talked over a big chunk of it, giving thank yous and credits at the end of the show. This damaged the underlying music so much that it didn't sound good. Luckily, the instrumental repeated some parts almost exactly, so nothing really important was lost.

The result of all my editing is that you're left with an excellent sounding bunch of songs, plus some interesting banter. Because this was recorded in a studio with no audience, the songs often sound as good as the studio versions.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Introduction (John Mellencamp)
02 Paper in Fire (John Mellencamp)
03 talk (John Mellencamp)
04 Hard Times for an Honest Man (John Mellencamp)
05 talk (John Mellencamp)
06 Cherry Bomb (John Mellencamp)
07 talk (John Mellencamp)
08 Shama Lama Ding Dong (John Mellencamp)
09 talk (John Mellencamp)
10 Small Town (John Mellencamp)
11 talk (John Mellencamp)
12 Empty Hands (John Mellencamp)
13 talk (John Mellencamp)
14 Down and Out in Paradise (John Mellencamp)
15 talk (John Mellencamp)
16 Rooty Toot Toot (John Mellencamp)
17 talk (John Mellencamp)
18 Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)
19 talk (John Mellencamp)
20 R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (John Mellencamp)
21 Walk Don't Run [Instrumental] [Edit] (John Mellencamp)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693363/JOHNMLLNCMP1987_TmthyWhitesRockstrsBelmntMllStudos__7-10-1987_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a concert in Ohio University some time in 1987.

John Mellencamp - Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH, 7-25-1984

I'm not a huge John Mellencamp fan, but he's had a career he should be proud of. This bootleg concert is from early in his career, before he'd written many of his classic hits. But it's a worthy and interesting show even if you're not a big Mellencamp fan because A) it has great sound quality, B) it consists mostly of cover versions, and C) it's entirely performed solo acoustic. That last one is particularly notable. At this point in his career he almost never performed in acoustic mode. I'm guessing it was the only full show he did in that format for many years before this and many years after.

I don't know what the occasion for the acoustic format was, but I'm guessing it was a benefit concert or something like that. It was broadcast live on the radio, which is why it sounds professionally recorded. It's also rather odd in that a radio DJ came up on stage halfway through the show and briefly interviewed Mellencamp right there. I left that in. (It's only a couple of minutes long.) However, the same DJ returned and talked during the wait for the encore and then after the encore. I cut all that out since most of it was just a lame effort to stall for time and keep the audience engaged.

At this point, Mellencamp was having trouble being taken seriously, as he was originally packaged as a teen pop star. That can be reflected by his name changes towards his real name, from "Johnny Cougar," to "John Cougar," to "John Cougar Mellencamp," to "John Mellencamp." The "Johnny Cougar" name was imposed on him by his record company without his knowledge or permission. One year before this concert, he'd become "John Cougar Mellencamp." Anyway, given his reputation at the time, his song selection here is interesting. Only a few of the songs were written by him: "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song," "Taxi Dancer," "Thundering Hearts," "Pink Houses," and "Jack and Diane." He didn't play his biggest hit at that point, "Hurts So Good." Instead, he had a lot of relatively obscure choices, such as two songs written by John Prine ("Please Don't Bury Me" and "Sam Stone") and two by Elliott Murphy ("Last of the Rock Stars" and "White Middle Class Blues").

The album is 56 minutes long. Perhaps his time slot was limited, because he almost never spoke between songs, or even paused that long for applause.

01 talk (John Mellencamp)
02 Crumblin' Down (John Mellencamp)
03 All Along the Watchtower (John Mellencamp)
04 Please Don't Bury Me (John Mellencamp)
05 Little Honda (John Mellencamp)
06 Authority Song (John Mellencamp)
07 The Spider and the Fly (John Mellencamp)
08 talk - interview (John Mellencamp)
09 Mercedes Benz (John Mellencamp)
10 talk (John Mellencamp)
11 Sam Stone (John Mellencamp)
12 Taxi Dancer (John Mellencamp)
13 Five O'Clock World (John Mellencamp)
14 Street Fighting Man (John Mellencamp)
15 Thundering Hearts (John Mellencamp)
16 Early Bird Cafe (John Mellencamp)
17 Pink Houses (John Mellencamp)
18 talk (John Mellencamp)
19 Last of the Rock Stars (John Mellencamp)
20 White Middle Class Blues (John Mellencamp)
21 Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16693367/JOHNMLLNCMP1984_AgraBallromClvelndOH__7-25-1984_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos of Mellencamp with an acoustic guitar from 1984. So instead I went with one taken at the Farm Aid concert in 1986.

Various Artists - Farm Aid on the Road 2020, 9-26-2020

Here's another recent live stream benefit concert with lots of big names. Farm Aid has been happening every year since 1985, funding a non-profit that benefits Americans with family farms. Of course, the 2020 concert has had to be a virtual event, with artists prerecording their songs from their homes. This is a particularly long concert, almost three hours, after the many cuts I made.

Speaking of those cuts, I didn't cut any of the music. But there was lots of talking between songs, including testimonials from farmers and even some commercials. I cut all that out. Musician Jon Batiste introduced each of the other musicians, and I cut all those intros out too. I also frequently edited down the comments from the artists themselves to the bare bones. My thinking there was I wanted this to be focused on the music, with repeat playability.

In terms of the music, this differs from some other similar benefit concerts during the pandemic in that the big name artists got to play up to four songs instead of just one or two. Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews all got to play four songs each, and most of the others played two. Willie Nelson and his two sons Lukas and Micah ended the show with eight songs, with them rotating who did the lead vocals. (Particle Kid is the name of Micah Nelson's band.)

the sound is generally excellent. The only exception to that is Neil Young's set. Neil, being weird as he often is, decided to play his songs in a chicken coop in a farm. So there's a lot of ambient noise, especially the clucking of chickens. There was nothing I could do to improve the sound there, but it still sounds okay.

As I mentioned yesterday when posting the "A Night for Austin" benefit concert, there are a lot of these sorts of concerts in 2020, but I pass on most of them. However, like the Austin one, I was impressed by the consistently high quality of music in this one. I encourage you to give it a listen.

01 Home (Jack Johnson)
02 Better Together (Jack Johnson)
03 And It's Still Alright (Nathaniel Rateliff)
04 Time Stands (Nathaniel Rateliff)
05 Where Rainbows Never Die (Chris Stapleton)
06 Starting Over (Chris Stapleton)
07 To Live (Norah Jones)
08 Sunrise (Norah Jones)
09 The Movie Song (Record Company)
10 Black Patch (Kelsey Waldon)
11 Colors (Black Pumas)
12 Confines (Black Pumas with Jack Johnson)
13 Don't Drink the Water (Dave Matthews)
14 Rye Whiskey (Dave Matthews)
15 Grey Street (Dave Matthews)
16 Shadows on the Wall (Dave Matthews)
17 Drink Up and Go Home (Valerie June)
18 Lonesome Valley (Valerie June)
19 Longest Days (John Mellencamp)
20 Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp)
21 Easy Target (John Mellencamp)
22 Rain on the Scarecrow (John Mellencamp)
23 The Eye (Brandi Carlile)
24 The Mother (Brandi Carlile)
25 Field of Opportunity (Neil Young)
26 Homegrown (Neil Young)
26 talk (Neil Young)
27 Harvest (Neil Young)
28 Old Man (Neil Young)
29 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Neil Young)
30 You Don't Know like I Know (Bonnie Raitt & Boz Scaggs)
31 All My Tears [Be Washed Away] (Jamey Johnson)
32 Every Night Is Saturday Night in New Orleans (Jamey Johnson)
33 Far Away (Edie Brickell with Charlie Sexton)
34 Jubilee (War & Treaty)
35 Little Boy Blue (War & Treaty)
36 Letting Me Down (Margo Price)
37 Prisoner of the Highway (Margo Price)
38 American Life (Particle Kid)
39 Focus on the Music (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real)
40 King Harvest [Has Surely Come] (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real)
41 Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die (Willie Nelson with Micah Nelson & Lukas Nelson)
42 I Thought about You, Lord (Micah Nelson with Lukas Nelson & Willie Nelson)
43 Hands on the Wheel (Lukas Nelson with Micah Nelson & Willie Nelson)
44 On the Road Again (Willie Nelson, Lukas Nelson & Micah Nelson)
45 I'll Fly Away (Jon Batiste)
46 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Willie Nelson & Jon Batiste)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/p27jfimd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/q4dteikU0RLjn9p/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/inCmM

For the album cover, I decided to use the official logo for the concert. This appeared at the very start of the concert video when it appeared on YouTube. I made some adjustments to the date at the bottom, but otherwise left it unchanged.