“Play Your Body is a Wonderland!”
“You don’t really want to hear that song do you?”
It’s refreshing to know that even as its creator, John Mayer knows that song is the bane of pop music. He is the Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde of the music industry; one day gracing the front page of Who Magazine, the next day matching the guitar work of Eric Clapton at the Crossroads Music Festival like the genius he is. It’s as if he grew up wanting to be both a trashy Top 40 pop star and an axe-wielding, badass bluesman when the little girl from the Old El Paso commercial walked up to him and asked, ‘Why can’t you be both?’
And it’s that dichotomy, in front of 10,000 devotees at Rod Laver Arena, which dictated John Mayer’s concert. Opening with Belief, one of his most powerful anti-war blues songs, Mayer and his seven-piece jammed for close to ten minutes, including a solo intent on proving to any remaining nonbelievers that he is one of the best guitarists of his generation. He was unstoppable.
But doesn’t he still write incredibly tedious, heart-on-sleeve ballads that have lyrics out of a 14-year-old’s diary like that horrible song Daughters? Yes he does, Jimmy, which is why this concert was a tale of two reviewers, so stark in contrast, I could have had multiple personality disorder. I basically slept through Waiting On The Day, Half of My Heart, Speak for Me, On the Way Home, Who Says and Dear Marie, eurggh even the song titles make me want to slap him in the face.
I needed to do this for my own sanity because these songs are all so MOR, cringe-worthy and so far below his capability as a songwriter and as an artist, I needed to separate them from the person in front of me who struck the opening notes of Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. Because that, ladies and gentlemen, is a blues-pop masterpiece. It has a cathartic release like no other in his canon and not over-doing his solo, Mayer reached not for technical nous but for pure emotion, playing subtly, but deftly as if feeling every note of pain in the song.
Every song he played from his brilliant album Continuum was given the same treatment; John Mayer entered God-Mode for 8-12 minutes and the entire band lifted around him, I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You) and Waiting on the World To Change were two that greatly surpassed their recorded versions through the sheer passion of the band’s performance. Two back up singers harmonised with John as he climbed up and down the fret-board with astounding dexterity, but the back-up singers were hardly needed, such is the musical mind of Mayer that he harmonised with himself, playing the melody on his guitar whilst singing over the top of it. He’s that damn good.
He was self-aware and charming enough in one of his many rants to joke about the male/female split in his demographic and how men justify his existence on their iPods through his technical ability, before launching into an acoustic, mind-melting version of Neon. I appreciated the irony and these adjectives must seem superfluous and lazy, but if you have ever witnessed a man beat his acoustic guitar into submission in the same fashion as he did during that song, you will know my struggle. His well-worn Tom Petty cover of Free Fallin’ was just the right amount of naff, whilst No Such Thing provided a classic nostalgic moment for a time when he was somehow geekier than he is now.
John Mayer was never and never will be cool. He is, however, one of the most talented musicians in any genre, on any instrument of the last 20 years and to watch him perform is at times jaw-dropping. It is also at times frustrating, as he obviously panders to the pop music institution to stay relevant, whilst sacrificing his most natural and favoured music style. Finishing his concert with the hymnal beauty of Gravity proved that the blues is his true home; he just feels the need to wrap it up nicely enough for the public to consume it.
BY CHRISTOPHER LEWIS
Loved: Mr Hyde aka anything from Continuum. Neon was also spectacular.
Hated: Over the top Americana songs; he sounded like a country/folk version of Kid Rock.
Drank: Nothing. It was Rod Laver Arena and I refuse to pay $11 for VB.
