For more than four hours Friday night at Radio Radio, The Elms said goodbye the best way they knew how – they played heartland rock and roll.
Billed as a final performance as the Seymour-based group disbands, singer Owen Thomas and the rest of the gang went out on their terms. The show was Springsteenian in length, and showcased what they were ultimately best at: crafting memorable – and many times anthemic – pop/rock songs, showing roots of artists like Mellencamp and Petty.
The crowd (the show sold out well ahead of Friday) hung in there all night, through a 40-song set, rewarded with a sprint to the end that rocked heartily. They came to bid goodbye and fed energy back to the band, who was near the top of their game all night.
Thomas struggled to maintain his cool (though never lost his composure) early on, fighting back some tears as he talked to the crowd. As he told the audience before introducing the band, “You have two options: you can either be ‘profesh’ (as in professional) or you can let it all in.”
An early highlight was “Strut”, as guitarist Thom Daugherty showed why he may be one of the best rock and roll guitarists around, mixing sweetly nasty chords and powerfully elegant leads all night long. “Thunderhead” included great harmonies and the familiar “we can make it if you trust me” theme that permeates much of their best work.
Thomas told a story about a $150 jean jacket, with a flower sewn on it, that he bought in LA at a vintage clothing story, and that he had never worn it because the sleeves were too stiff. He said he washed it 40 times, and nothing worked to soften it. So he off cut the sleeves, and pulled it out of his closet and wore it for the last show.
Such was the tone of the night, with many songs, and lots of talking between them. Sometimes Thomas recounted a story about a bandmember, and other times said “I love you, I love you” to the crowd.
The others, including Owen’s brother Chris on drums and Nathan Bennett on bass, were more stoic, though Daugherty, who has been a friends with the singer since fourth grade, sweetly laid his head on Thomas’ shoulder at the end of the duo playing “Smile at Life Again”.
“You Got No Room to Talk!” from 2002’s Truth, Soul and Rock and Roll album mined the Bryan Adams territory they visit so well; Sugary-yet-powerful chord changes, drums that pushed the song and lyrics specific enough to mean something, and universal enough that you can make it your own story.
Hitting their stride with “The Workingman”, dedicated to their dads, and “Unless God Appears First” (possibly the best performance of the night), “The Tower and the Trains”, from 2006’s The Chess Hotel was introduced as an ode to their hometown, and Daugherty tore it up on guitar, while the rest of band broke out of the three-chord rock and roll songbook to get a little Zep-like.
A sprint to the end included “This is How the World Will End”, from The Great American Midrange album, and another example of why it is their best record. Gospel mixed with rock mixed with Elms. The same can be said for “The Way I Will”, one of the Chess Hotel’s pieces of power pop brilliance, and the energy of the night made the live version memorable.
Rockers “Back to Indiana”, “The Shake” and “Nothin’ to Do with Love” set the stage for “A Place in the Sun”, the final song off their final album. In the days leading up to the final show, Thomas has posted on his blog how the song had become his favorite. It’s message of finding one’s place in the world no doubt resonated deeply as the band prepared to quit.
There’s two questions to be asked: Was it a great show, and what made it worthy of a final performance?
The band answered with a show epic in length and heartfelt in delivery. The Elms were tight and aggressive when they played, and there was certainly no mistaking the love of the crowd for the four guys who grew from kids into adults in ten years, four albums, and hundreds of shows (and van rides) together.
For one last night, the bandmembers wore their hearts out in the open, and made some loud – and hopeful – noise, much like they have been doing in their decade together.
And if you are going to say a rock and roll goodbye, have a final blowout. And that’s what they did.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McFOB90imQM]
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John Mellencamp
Hear new Mellencamp song from upcoming album
The title track from John Mellencamp’s forthcoming album No Better Than This was sent to AAA, Americana and Non-Commercial radio stations June 28th and is currently in rotation on AOL.com’s Adult Rock channel.
According to mellencamp.com, a video for the song, using footage from filmmaker Kurt Markus’ It’s About You documentarychronicling the making of the album will be released in the next couple weeks.
→ Hear the track at mellencamp.com
The cover photo of the No Better Than This album was shot by Elaine Mellencamp and shows Hud Mellencamp, their oldest son, in a photo with two young women. A photo of younger Hud, also by Elaine, was used on the cover of 2003’s Trouble No More.
Review from AOL:
The song ‘No Better Than This’ features a prominent rockabilly beat and lively, uncomplicated production. The lyrics portray a pretty happy guy reveling in the simple pleasures of romance and music: “Give me good loving / And seal it with a kiss / Drop me off where the music sounds / It can get no better than this.”
Larry Crane on New Album, Mellencamp Band Reunion
Not only does Larry Crane bring a new solo record back to Indiana this week, the former John Mellencamp guitar player may soon be prepping a return to the studio with John and the band.
Saturday night’s show at Bloomington’s Buskirk-Chumley Theater promotes the Florida-living Crane’s new album Tropical Depression, and is a chance for reconnection for those who might have lost track of Crane, either when he left Mellencamp, or eventually, the state.
“The show will be a storyteller’s-type vibe,” Larry says. “I will have my guitar player Tony Burton, with me. And then I’ll throw in a few surprises towards the end.”
Back with Mellencamp
As he talks from his Sarasota home, Crane also says the old Mellencamp band may take a stab at creating music as a unit again, 20 years after they ceased making together — other than the subdued Big Daddy record – shortly after the 1987 Lonesome Jubilee tour ended.
If not the creator or co-creator, Crane is at the very least the man who helped form Mellencamp’s snarling, rootsy, aggressive guitar attack, on record and on stage.
“When we did Uh-Huh (in 1983), we did it really quickly,” Larry says. “John is thinking about going back to that vibe.”
Mellencamp Announces Pair of Album Releases, Film Documentary
John Mellencamp has announced the release dates for two albums and a film documentary, and will hit the road for some summer and fall tour dates.
First comes the official announcement of On the Rural Route 7609, a four-CD set, coming June 15, that includes 12 unreleased tracks — including writing demos of “Jack and Diane,” “Authority Song” and “Cherry Bomb” and poetic readings of songs like “The Real Life” by actress Joanne Woodward. The 54 tracks and each disc is set up as an individual album with common themes rather than being presented in chronological order.
Many of Mellencamp’s biggest hits, such as “Hurts So Good,” “Paper in Fire” and “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” are not on the album.
“I have no interest in going back and putting together a bunch of hits,” Mellencamp explained on his website. “I had this idea of discovery. I think all of those songs (on On the Rural Route 7609) were overlooked…I thought this was just a good way to say, ‘OK, so this isn’t about hit records. This is about what the rest of these albums were about ”
Rounder Records, a new label for Mellencamp, will release No Better Than This, on August 3. Produced by T Bone Burnett, it’s an album of all new original songs recorded at a variety of historically significant locations around the South. Mellencamp told billboard.com that he wrote the thirteen songs included on the album during a thirteen-day span last spring.
“I was tightly focused,” he related, “I got up every day and wrote and wrote and wrote.”
Among the locations were the First African Baptist Church, the first Black church in North America dating to pre-revolutionary times. The original congregation and ministry were slaves; the church, in fact, provided sanctuary to runaways before emancipation. He and his wife Elaine were baptized there before the sessions commenced, and he has a home in the area.
They also recorded at Sun Studios, using a 1955 Ampex tape machine and establishing a makeshift recording booth in a construction shed in a vacant lot next door. Mellencamp and his musicians arranged themselves on the studio floor in accordance with markings that had been laid down by Sam Phillips many years before for optimal presence.
He also recorded in Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio is where Robert Johnson first recorded for Brunswick Records in November of 1936.
Filmmaker Kurt Markus documented the No Better Than This sessions for a movie that Mellencamp plans to use to open a run of theater shows that’s slated to begin in October.The concerts will include the movie, a stripped-down acoustic set with his band, a solo segment and then a fully electrified rock set.
He said the record was “the most fun I’ve ever had making a record in my life. It was about making music — organic music made by real musicians — that’s heartfelt and written from the best place it can come from”.
Mellencamp, who’s playing four shows in July, has plans for minor league baseball stadium dates with Bob Dylan later this summer, according to his website.
See tour dates
Track list on page 2