Air Mayer Lands in Raleigh

Concert Review by David Menconi

Photo: Getty Images

John Mayer
Saturday, July 17
Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek (Raleigh, N.C.)

It's not quite on the level of Neil Young's folkie/rocker dynamic, but John Mayer has always had a split musical personality. There's his pop-star side that makes female fans swoon from lighter-than-air acoustic confections like "Your Body Is a Wonderland"; and his rocker-dude side, in which Mayer self-consciously aspires to the electric pantheon alongside Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana and other great bards of the six-string. He wants it all, of course, and it's hard to blame him for that.

Past tours have found Mayer leaning too far in one direction or the other — going too lightweight, or overemphasizing the guitar heroics. But Mayer's latest tour is as close as he's ever come to melding those two sides, charting an effective and engaging middle course between the extremes of pandering and self-indulgence. And the irony is that, by making the show more of an ensemble effort, he's more the guitar hero that he wants to be. Sometimes the best move of all is not to try so hard, and just gravitate toward what you do best. Understatement suits him.

Following a serviceable hour-long opening set by Train, Mayer came onstage at Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion in Raleigh with little fanfare, dressed in his customary performing attire (white T-shirt, black jeans, sneakers). By way of setting the mood and clearing his instrument's throat, Mayer opened with a salvo of bluesy wailing on a gold Stratocaster. Then the rest of the band swung in and it resolved into the opening number, "Vultures" — a song about wanting to stand out, fittingly enough:

        "Some of us, we're hardly ever here
        The rest of us, we're born to disappear
        How do I stop myself from
        Being just a number?..."

Mayer's touring band featured backup guitarists Robbie McIntosh (Pretenders, Paul McCartney) and David Ryan Harris (Follow For Now), who both got ample time in the instrumental spotlight. Same for the two-piece trumpet/saxophone horn section, which may have accounted for more solos than anyone else onstage.

But while Mayer didn't take as many guitar solos as in tours past, he picked his spots well and hit a variety of different sounds and tones, from bombs-bursting-in-air piercing to casually atmospheric. He played a half-dozen or so electric guitars, most of them Fenders - including his longtime standby "The Black One," which will be available soon in a signature replica model that even duplicates the worn spots on the body. Mayer broke that one out for a long, slow and bluesy version of "Gravity," which featured his flashiest solo of the night.

Four of the first five songs found Mayer playing acoustic rather than electric guitar, including tasteful renditions of "Why Georgia" and "Who Says." He also gave a nod to expatriate North Carolinian James Taylor, though not without taking some liberties: "In my mind I'm stoned in Carolina."

It wouldn't be a Mayer show without some standup comedy because the man is a multi-media animal (and one of the most compulsive twitter users in pop culture). There was plenty of evidence of his heartthrob reputation in the crowd, including some of the signs female fans held up: "My body is a wonderland!," "Want a backrub?" and so on. But he came across as an amiable regular guy, self-deprecating to a fault.

"We know you have your choice of musical acts, and we thank you for flying Air Mayer," he deadpanned toward the end of the show.

Covers accounted for some of the evening's most memorable interludes, including an excellent acoustic rendition of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" during the encore and Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" done up as a reggae groove. The latter song featured some very fine interplay between Mayer and the horn section, with him trading off and expertly duplicating horn lines on his guitar. It was as casual as it was impressive.

"I may only be entertaining myself," he said with a shrug. No, not just himself.