John Mayer gives thousands a taste of the blues in Alpharetta

He may have once played in coffee shops and bars in Atlanta to small crowds, but that wasn't the case last Friday night.

John Mayer, the famed pop-blues guitarist entertained an absolutely packed house at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre as the headliner of this year's Starfest, put on by Star 94.

Walking out on stage donning a sleeveless "Purple Rain" t-shirt (no doubt to display his full-sleeve tattoo on his left arm), he immediately went into his recent hit, "Waiting on the World to Change," before then proceeding into his first major hit, 2001's "No Such Thing," telling of someone's last days in high school.

Mayer has seen his star steadily rise over the last few years to where he is now one of the preeminent acts on the musical landscape these days. But that has not always been the case.

Once a student at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, Mayer dropped out and moved to this area at the request of a friend.

He saw his popularity grow on numerous pop hits, and his fame was on full display with maybe the biggest crowd yet during the amphitheatre's inaugural season. When Mayer's soaring blues guitar solos could not be heard, the air was instead filled with the shrieks of thousands of teens who were no doubt in awe of their idol.

But Mayer offers an interesting dichotomy when on stage.

It's clear that, in his own words, all he wants to do is play the blues guitar, but his fans seem more in-tune to his pop sensibilities, namely the songs he plays while strumming an acoustic. The singer-songwriter has a deep appreciation for the blues and likes to play it often, but much of his audience seems slightly ignorant of this fact, which is a shame, because good blues rock is spectacular.

Mayer is smart in this way because while he knows that the money comes from songs like "No Such Thing" and "Your Body is a Wonderland," it allows him the freedom to get up on a stage like this and educate his fans on the blues. It must be much harder to play blues rock in a coffee shop with a full band and electric instruments.

He announced the name of the song going into it, but I'd be interested to see the percentage of people there who could tell you who originally wrote it, though partial credit could be given if Cream was said.

But that wasn't the only cover he did that night, other classics he interpreted were Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" and Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home," which interestingly enough were both performed on that very same stage earlier in the summer at the Tom Petty/Steve Winwood concert. I guess Mayer didn't get the memo.

Kicking off things at Starfest were the new group One Republic, out of Colorado.

This band I had not heard before but seemed to do their best Coldplay impression on stage, right down to lead singer Ryan Tedder standing while playing the upright piano a la Chris Martin. They seemed to be surprised at the huge crowd already there to see an opening act, and were clearly feeding off the energy.

They themselves performed a classic cover, giving a go at Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." But this band told the fans who it was by and that it was very old.

Throughout the show Mayer liked to remind his fans that his career started in this very same city by telling stories about when he used to live here.

Before "Why Georgia," he said he was inspired to write it when he forgot his guitar on his way to a Borders in-store performance, and had to sit in traffic, then when he finally got there, the story he told to the four or five people there became the lyrics.

While there were these sweet little interludes, Mayer and crew (he has a great backing band) liked to go off on more exploratory tangents with Mayer stretching out his considerable blues guitar chops. This included one point in the show where he set his guitar down on the stage and kneeled next to it, playing a solo on the ground.

Since it was one of three shows on the tour left, he warned that the band had a lot of energy to get out and might get a bit self-indulgent. He said there are strict fines for going past curfew, but he didn't seem to care, noting that although it costs $1,000 per minute over time, that they should put him down for 30.

John Mayer gave a raucous hometown crowd a great show last Friday, and he said he couldn't wait to be back here again playing songs off his new record, which he plans on going to the woods to write and record as soon as the tour ends.
- www.northfulton.com

Sphere: Related Content