I will NOT call this a review because I don’t agree with the concept of reviewing albums, art, concerts, etc. I will call it commentary instead, because they’re my comments. I like John Mayer’s music a lot, but my wife is a huge fan, which is why I’ve seen him 5 times now, the latest being last night at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida.
Last night, I watched the mostly female crowd go nuts over John’s hits and deep cuts, hilighted by the song “Comfortable,” which never appeared on any of his full albums (though no one seems to know why – it would have been very popular.) I know John’s catalog pretty well, and it’s easy to think of him as a Strat player. But his current solo tour is all about the acoustic guitar. He played piano on two songs, and played electric on a small part of one of those two songs. The rest was acoustic. He played for 2 hours. Everyone, including me, wanted more, but 2 hours is pretty good.
As an acoustic player, he’s extremely good. I’ve seen more than my share of bar performers who entertain a crowd for four hours with just an acoustic guitar, and… well, I’ve almost never seen anyone who keeps my attention for more than 15 minutes. Yes, I’m a snob, and most people are fine with it, but if all you’re doing is playing acoustic and singing, you need to be a very good acoustic player. John’s so good, you barely miss the band. And in many cases, you’re glad there isn’t one.
Why? Because he’s an actual honest to God songwriter, and these are great songs. And when you strip them down, they’re still great songs. In the modern pop era of two chord songs and autotune, John reminds us what an actual artist sounds like. And he’s a good enough acoustic player that you don’t miss the band. I already said that.
All of John’s acoustics looked like parlor guitars to me – they were all small and skinny. On a stage, through a PA, it doesn’t really matter. I bought a thinline acoustic recently for playability. I think more players should remember that – if you’re going through a PA, you don’t need a big huge guitar. The sound guy is just going to remove the low end anyway.
We can learn a lot from John’s acoustic playing. Aside from knowing (and playing) all the chords, he also used a capo and some guitars had alternate tunings – two ways of getting different sounds. And mostly he was playing complicated chords, meaning lots of seconds, fourths, sixths, and sevenths. If you want to up your acoustic game, don’t play the first position cowboy chords – play more complicated chords. I definitely want to do that. All I need to do now is learn them.
Alternate tunings is starting to sound better.
