John Mayer and his eight-piece band absolutely crushed it last night (March 25) at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre – weighty even in the absence of ‘Gravity’.
They kick off with ‘Belief’, the gentle riff an easy settling-in for this viewing of the Mayer galaxy. “We’re never gonna win the world...”
Next we’re ‘Moving On And Getting Over’, with intro by guitarist Isaiah Sharkey on a Mayer signature PRS Silver Sky guitar, in Dodgem Blue (John plays one in Golden Mesa paint for most of the night).
Image © Ophelia Symons
It was a seated floor at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, but the floor was standing. The Martin acoustic guitar comes out for ‘Who Says’, and it feels like he's just in the lounge room playing casually to 15,000 people.
“It’s been a long night in New York City, it’s been a long night in Brisbane too,” (well, didn't we love that). “Everybody is just a stranger, but that’s the danger in going my own way.” Who can argue with this guy’s songwriting? 'Why Georgia' just blossoms in four-part harmony.
Click here for more photos from the show.
Some burly-sounding guy shouts from the back “we love you John” and half the amphitheatre laughs, but then it’s not so novel when more follow.
“Hold onto whatever you find baby”... the gold guitar can be gentle and gritty, clean and crying, and they all happen in ‘I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)’. She (the guitar) cries and begs and takes you down with her. This is what he was aiming for with his guitar design. No, John, I don’t trust myself.
There’s a drawn-out space before things start at once, together, with a heavier lean on the sample pad under the hands of the second percussionist. “How much of my mother, has my mother left in me?” for ‘In The Blood’.
‘Helpless': it’s so repeatable; it’s dynamic. It’s a drive across the countryside with the windows down. You can almost smell the soul in it.
Image © Ophelia Symons
It must be a beautiful freedom having such a comfortable posse behind him to let go of everything else physically and then seamlessly change notes between his human voice and that of his guitar, as he does in 'Changing'.
“This one’s off my ‘Continuum’ record,” before he unravels how the “Vultures... they’ve never gone this long without a kill before.”
After the intermission (“how civilised,” someone said), John opens up to us a little. “This song is a polarising song, or was a polarising song.” He tells us about how this song is now a time capsule to him at 21. “I didn’t sit down to write something cheesy – that’s not our boy?!” It’s ‘Your Body Is A Wonderland’.
He’s alone on the stage and plays the staring game he likes to do during it – picking someone in the audience who likes that song the least, for a staring competition. “You stood your ground sir,” he commends, with fun and respect.
“This is the least known song in my catalogue,” as he plays an intro on harmonica to ‘Go Easy On Me’. It's marvellous to hear him in almost silence, without a choir of thousands distorting the experience.
“Close,” he says afterwards. It's one of the few tracks he’s using a pick for. Another bit of acoustic foreplay goes on before ‘Neon’ explodes into audible view. “When I would take her any way I can...” there’s a part that feels more like an upright bass solo, which blends into a bar-chord frenzy.
Image © Ophelia Symons
“I didn’t expect this song to mean what it now means so soon,” before Tom Petty’s ‘Free Falling’, done as a pair with David Ryan Harris, the third guitarist and one of three backing vocalists.
Out of the darkness, the drums start for ‘Waiting For The World To Change’. Since his vocal surgery, he’s lost a couple of notes crucial for that song. So in a tactile way he doesn't enjoy it anymore, and has to carry the melody along other branches he can reach. Makes it a little interesting, and his guitar can still sing it anyway.
“Money – we’ll make it. Pharmacy – we’ll take it.” John tells us about where he lives in Montana, the Murray bar, and in that bar there’s a jukebox that's not messing around. “There is nothing on that jukebox that is not cool. I am not on that jukebox.”
So, he had set about to write one that might be able to go on there, when 'Roll It On Home' was born. Actually, the whole song plays out in his mind, he tells us, in that bar. “You’ve been here so long tonight’s already yesterday.”
His vocals are just exquisite tonight – don't just watch him live on YouTube, kids. “I wrote this song nine years ago and I had no idea that it would be more applicable in ten years time... But I always find when I play this song I forget every last one of my worries.”
“Makes me wanna play this song just for a minute,” as he segue via Pete Townshend's 'Let My Love Open The Door' into 'The Age Of Worry'.
Image © Ophelia Symons
David Ryan Harris operates solo on acoustic doing a spectacular sample of Prince's ‘Beautiful Ones’ before that ‘Slow Dancing In A Burning Room’ queen of a song enters for her serenade.
It was such a ballroom spectacle it felt like that would be the end (before encore), but they shuffle about for a minute before the drummer starts this almost ‘50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’ thing for ‘Paper Doll’. John’s busy soloing alone as the song refuses to die; a snare gets swapped out for ‘Knockin On Heaven’s Door’ and they end on 'Dear Marie'.
The whole time, the bass player has been almost motionless up the back in his sunglasses, wedged between the drums and the amp stacks, and even where there have been patches of withheld percussion he is the groove glue buoying the tunes.
When he’s introduced as Pino Palladino it makes sense. He’s got a long career as a prolific session player joining John’s blues outfit, John Mayer Trio, more than a decade ago.
The two finales were John's latest single 'Guess I Just Feel Like' and the positively glowing party banger 'New Light'. Yeah boi, we see you in a new light.
Thanks for coming Down Under, mate.
John Mayer's world tour continues throughout 2019, with two more Australian shows in Melbourne (27 March) and Sydney (29 March).
