Gig review: John Mellencamp

"ROCK and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, recipient of the Woody Guthrie Award…" boomed a pre-recorded intro before John Mellencamp took to the stage. He can be forgiven for feeling the need to brief UK audiences on his impressive CV – the rock veteran from the Indiana heartland has sold more than 40 million records in the US in a 35-year career, but has only tasted modest success here.

Large parts of the auditorium were conspicuously empty, prompting the gritty-voiced 59-year-old to remark: "We're a small audience tonight, but a mighty one." The show's production values alone were worthy of a bigger crowd: the lighting was dark and atmospheric save for a ceiling-hung lattice of glowing bulbs, and his band comprised six deft players on guitars, drums, upright bass, fiddle, accordion and keyboards.

Mellencamp's setlist was an attempt to balance old and new material. Highlights from his latest album – No Better Than This, produced by T-Bone Burnett – were plentiful, among them Easter Eve, a waltz-time tale of going for a walk with his amateur boxer son, inadvertently getting into a brawl and walking off with their aggressor's wife.

But it felt slightly mean-spirited to water down perhaps his best-known number Jack & Diane to a rootsy strum, and to hold fist-pumping takes on the likes of Ain't That America and Rock in the USA until the death. If he is to belatedly break the UK, Mellencamp might consider playing to the gallery more.