To me, the sugary pop-rock of John Mayer's first few albums are like a big bucket of Halloween candy. Sweet, delectable, and hard to resist, but it can tend to make you a little sick after ingesting too much. That has essentially been my relationship with John Mayer. The hardest thing for me to swallow about Mayer's music has always been his rather annoying vocals - I'm talking Dave Mathews annoying, my friends. It has almost prevented me from really giving his music, and guitar playing, a fair chance. Until now, that is.
I am mostly familiar with Mayer's music because of my wife, who has had no problem at all consuming buckets of that Mayer candy every day. I only started warming to John Mayer after picking up his terrific 2005 blues-rock, power-trio album, Try! John Mayer Trio Live in Concert, and then watching his impressive performance on the second Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD, which featured songs from what is easily his strongest album to date, 2006's Continuum.
Until then, I had never really understood what all of the fuss was about the Mayer's guitar playing. His previous albums were not exactly "guitar albums", in the sense that all of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan's albums were. Mayer's guitar playing has always been much too subtle for my taste, but with Continuum, and especially Try!, Mayer is now demanding to be taken seriously. And indeed he should be.
After watching this latest John Mayer concert DVD, I must now give credit where credit is due. The world's most eligible bachelor can definitely pluck those guitar strings with the best of them. Mayer has matured immensely over the course of his last two albums, and his brilliant performance on this DVD is simply icing on the cupcakes.
Where The Light Is was recorded at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on December 8, 2007. The concert was broken up into three distinct segments; an intimate acoustic set, a blues, power-trio set, and a set featuring his full touring band. This format really allows Mayer to showcase his mastery of several different guitar styles, and makes this one of the most unique concerts I have ever seen.
Mayer begins the acoustic set by going back to his debut album for a gorgeous solo performance of "Neon". After a couple more impressive solo numbers, Mayer is joined onstage by his band guitarist Robbie McIntosh who adds some magnificent Dobro guitar embellishments throughout the hit ballad "Daughters". I'll take these acoustic arrangements over the original versions any day of the week. I was surprised at just how good Mayer was with an acoustic. With his other band guitarist, David Ryan Harris, joining them, they then close out the acoustic set with a folksy take on the Tom Petty classic "Free Fallin'".
Article comments