约翰·梅伦坎普周四在伍德隆球场的免费表演吸引了大批粉丝，包括学生和社区成员。他在节目结束后的新闻发布会上说:“我认为这非常好。”“那里很热，但一点也不像纳什维尔。”然而，这位摇滚明星明确表示，他的即兴表演绝不是一场音乐会。梅伦坎普说:“今天发生的事情与我们的音乐会正好相反。”他说音乐会是为了生意和推广他的音乐。“我厌倦了生活中的一切井井有条，厌倦了音乐事业，”他说。梅伦坎本月在多个城市进行了免费的惊喜原声表演。他说民谣音乐家伍迪·格思里是他这次旅行的灵感来源。他说:“格思里过去常常出去为人们在田野里玩耍。“现在，大多数人都在办公楼里工作。”印第安纳州警察局的杰里·明格尔说，有3000到1万人观看了这场演出。但他表示，准确的人数很难统计，因为不断有人流进进出出。“观众太棒了，”他说。“大家都非常合作。” Col. Wayne Pollard, a professor of military science, called off his afternoon classes so his students would have a chance to see Mellencamp play.\n"This is the bigger event. Mellencamp is a big supporter (of IU), and this is our way to show our support for him," Pollard said. "We (professors) ask people to do a lot of stuff in their free time, so we can be a little understanding" when such an event comes up, he said.\nJeremy Hambrick, a sophomore, chose to attend the performance rather than his class. "Mellencamp is an Indiana tradition, the roots of Indiana," he said.\n"This doesn't happen very often," said Jeff Wright, also a sophomore.\nMeanwhile, Tim Kolar, a junior and the president of Pi Kappa Alpha, was working with other fraternity members to pass out free bottles of cold water to the crowd in the sweltering heat. The fraternity accepted donations for the water, which will be given to Riley's Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.\n"We're trying to keep these people cold with some water," Kolar said. "We're out here doing community service at a nice free concert."\nMinger said he thought the water had prevented untold numbers of heat-related problems.\nKolar did miss class for the event, but said he e-mailed his professor, who approved his absence.\n "Hopefully, there are other teachers out there who understand," he said.\n"I think it's great that musicians who have extreme amounts of money can do this sort of thing."\n"The whole purpose (of this performance) is to lighten up their day a little," Mellencamp said during the press conference. He added that his tour of free shows was starting to resemble a job.\nWhen asked if he thought he broke the record for most students skipping class, Mellencamp said, "I doubt it, man."\nWendy Turow, a special education teacher in Indianapolis, took the day off of work to come down and see the show.\n"It's better now than it would be at night ' people can get out here and party," her husband, Ben Turow, said. "I've been a big fan for a number of years, but I've never seen an acoustic show."\nTravis Moore, a sophomore, and Jack Yates, a freshman, left the show before Mellencamp was done playing. \n"It's hot, man," Moore said. "It's just too hot out. It's dangerous."\nReed Brown and Matt Farmer of the Bloomington Hospital Ambulance Service were on hand in case of a medical emergency. \n"We had a few heat-related problems, but nothing serious," Brown said. "We were prepared with that, especially with this heat."\nFarmer said that the time of day and the nature of the show didn't have them too worried. "With such a young crowd, everyone's pretty healthy. And it's during the day, so everyone's pretty sober," he said. "We'd be worried if the crowd was elderly, or if people had been consuming alcohol."\n"Everyone was in extremely high spirits," Minger said.
