My
second John Mayer concert, Hammersmith Apollo on the 5th February 2004
was absolutely packed. The venue was much bigger than last year's
Shepards Bush but the crowd turned up and quite a number more guys than
you would expect.
We endured a pretty solid
opening band- which I'd like to find out more about, and then John (i
don't want to be one of those people who refer to celebrities on a first
name basis- but it gets tedious and overly formal sometimes so from here
on, John Mayer is now- just John) and co. came onstage- John clad in
what a friend of mine described- as a Christmas time sweater and started
it off with a personal favourite- clarity. The two piece
wind section comprising of a trumpet and saxophone was an excellent
touch- and gave a more soulful feel to the music.
I had been anticipating
hearing most of his new songs live as i thought the new album Heavier
Things was pretty song based, rather than instrument based like his
previous works. I was anticipating extra riffs and nifty solos- which
came only later on with an interpolation of ...the most beautiful
girl in the world in your body is a wonderland and even a
short taste of The Darkness's I believe in a thing called love a
small tribute to Britain.
the band was pretty
tight, with the chinesey dude on backing guitars and Dela on
bass, but i thought the drummer was not too good. John's banter with the
audience was pretty brash but the audience seemed to love his stuff and
i guess he knew it as well. i wish i was able to record bootlegs of
unique concert-only versions of something's missing and come
back to bed- which featured narratives and different riffs.
for the encore, he played
some new material called distance and closed with st.
patricks day. Despite pleas from the audience, he didnt play neon
but covered pretty much most of Room for Squares and Heavier
Things. All in - a damn good performance- i have to get me one of
those digicams with audio recording.
...and did i mention i
managed to get a roadie to throw a cool John Mayer plectrum at me ?
edit- i just found out
the plec i got with the word chaves on it belongs to Chaves-
John's chinese/japanese backing guitarist.
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