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John Mayer (Friday, 8:15 p.m. AMD Stage)
It wasn’t until his appearance on “The Dave Chappelle Show” that John Mayer finally persuaded the world (or the Comedy Central audience, at least) that he had some serious guitar-playing mettle, and now, audiences are happy to let him ride with it. Mayer’s huge crowd Friday night was a testament to an artist who got popular as a pop-ballad boy (“Your Body is a Wonderland,” “Daughters”) but refused to get slotted in the sensitive-male heartthrob mode – though after introducing his band, he announced with typical humor, “I’m Jon Secada.”
Speaking of that band, it included Austin drummer Jay Jay Johnson and famed Paul McCartney guitarist Robbie McIntosh (which may explain why “Heart of Life” sounded like McCartney could have written it). Clearly, the band respects the still-baby-faced player, whose blues chops convey his hardly-a-secret love of Jimi Hendrix and whose voice (spongy pronunciation and all) more than matches his playing. He definitely knows how to rock (as in “Vultures,” which also contained some funky little Prince inflections, and the opening antiwar song, “Waiting for the World to Change”), but he’s also injected his ballads, such as “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” from the new “Continuum,” with some serious muscle. Mayer was always a compelling performer, but it took him a while to bring his audiences around to where he wanted to go. Now that they’ve made the trip (even if a few little-girl fans were left behind), we’re all a little closer to a musical wonderland.
(photo by Ricardo Brazziell AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: 2006 Reviews
Comments
By MBRox
September 19, 2006 09:31 AM | Link to this
Continuum is an awesome CD. John rocked it.
By Sierra
September 17, 2006 12:36 PM | Link to this
The performance was awesome!!