For anyone who grew up singing along to ‘Jack & Diane‘ or ‘Small Town‘ at the top of their lungs, John Mellencamp’s upcoming tour has bittersweet news. The songs you love are coming back this summer, and for some of them, it may be the last time.
Standing in the rehearsal room for his upcoming Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits, the 74-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer made the stakes clear in a Facebook message from day one of rehearsals. ‘This will be the last time I play some of these songs,’ he told fans, ‘and the first time I played some of them in decades.’ He closed with a grin and a tongue-in-cheek aside. He’s still working out, but he’s still smoking, to (as he held a cigarette up to lips).
The Dancing Words Tour is a departure from where Mellencamp has been for years. In recent years, he focused on theater shows that mixed in new material and storytelling segments, and more than once made news for angrily engaging with audience members who were unhappy with the format. The new tour will bring his greatest hits to 19 U.S. cities this summer, the first time in 17 years the legendary rocker will focus squarely on his most cherished songs in a single night.
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The setlist for the 27-song show draws from the catalog that made him a household name. Fans can expect “Pink Houses,” “Jack and Diane,” “Small Town,” “Hurts So Good,” “Authority Song,” and “Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First),” alongside tracks he hasn’t touched in over a decade, including “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.,” “I Need a Lover,” “Wild Nights,” and “Ain’t Even Done With the Night.” Every one of them, Mellencamp said in the video, ‘was a gift that you were able to sing along the way.’
Mellencamp was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018. His breakthrough came with the 1982 album American Fool, featuring “Jack & Diane” and “Hurts So Good,” the latter earning him a Grammy Award. Over more than five decades, he built a powerful catalog for a generation of Americans who came of age in small towns, or who just love well-written rock-n-roll.
The Dancing Words Tour kicks off July 10 at Acrisure Amphitheater in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and runs through August 12 at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Given what Mellencamp said at rehearsal, some of these shows may be the only chance fans ever get to hear certain songs performed live again.
Full Tour Schedule:July 10 – Grand Rapids, MI / July 11 – Tinley Park, IL / July 13 – Kansas City, MO / July 14 – Shakopee, MN / July 16 – Clarkston, MI / July 18 – Noblesville, IN / July 19 – Cincinnati, OH / July 21 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH / July 24 – Mansfield, MA / July 25 – Holmdel, NJ / July 26 – Wantagh, NY / July 29 – Bristow, VA / July 30 – Charlotte, NC / Aug. 1 – Alpharetta, GA / Aug. 3 – Tampa, FL / Aug. 6 – Houston, TX / Aug. 9 – Phoenix, AZ / Aug. 10 – Hollywood, CA / Aug. 12 – Mountain View, CA
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