On top was the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s name, and below, a sign of the pride he has for his hometown, “Bloomington, Ind.”
John Mellencamp performed in front of a crowded IU Auditorium on Tuesday for the first of two shows at the venue.
The Bloomington rock legend is currently on an 80-night tour of North America that started in South Bend on Jan. 21 and will end in ?Indianapolis on Aug. 4.
The tour is in support of his latest album, “Plain Spoken,” which was released in September 2014.
To open the show, Carlene Carter, daughter of June Carter Cash, granddaughter of “Mother” Maybelle Carter and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash, took the stage by herself with just an acoustic guitar to play a ?10-song set.
Her most recent album, “Carter Girl,” which was released in 2014, is what she described as a compilation of Carter family songs.
“I finally wanted to get around to doing a tribute to my family,” ?she said.
The ninth song Carter played in her set, “Me and the Wildwood Rose,” was a song she had recycled from her 1990 album, “I Fell In Love.”
The song talks about Carter’s childhood growing up in the backseat of a big, black Cadillac and watching “Mother” Maybelle Carter perform from the side of the stage.
When the song ended, she ?seamlessly transitioned into “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” an American hymn popularly performed by ?Carter’s grandmother.
“All I ever wanted to do was be a Carter girl and that’s the way it turned out to be,” she said.
When Mellencamp finally took the stage, the crowd rose to its feet and screamed.
Unlike the crowd’s response, there was nothing grandiose about the musician’s show. He lived up to the title of his most recent album throughout the ?concert.
He didn’t speak to the crowd until he and his band had played through the entirety of four songs, and when he did talk, the first words he said were in the form of an ?unnecessary introduction.
“I’m John Mellencamp,” he said. “If you wanna dance along, then feel free to dance along.”
Coming from the small town of Seymour, Ind., and frequently calling Bloomington his hometown, the rock legend has ?humble roots.
Audience members could remember going to the bars around town in the late 1960s and watching a young Johnny Cougar at the beginning of his career.
One local woman, Victoria Rogers, said she had been at the Bluebird for at least one of those ?small shows.
“I was just writing on Facebook, saying that I ?remember when he was first starting out as Johnny Cougar, and you could just go to the bar and hear him sing,” she said.
Rogers said she was mostly looking forward to hearing the old songs, but she was going to stay open about listening to his ?new material.
Many in the audience who hadn’t gotten the chance to see Mellencamp in his early days were no less devoted to the musician, however.
Steve Klein came from Sellersville, Ind., and said this was his second time seeing Mellencamp on his current tour, the first time being Jan. 23 in ?Louisville, Ky.
“He’s one of the top five of all time,” Klein said.
