Mayer proves there’s ‘No Such Thing’ as a bad performance

Staff Writer

In his song “My Stupid Mouth”, John Mayer sings, “my stupid mouth has got me in trouble, I said too much again, oh, another social casualty, score one more for me.” Oddly enough, these words are extremely relatable to Mayer considering his most recent publicity scandal, but at his March 9 concert at the American Airlines Center, he proved that even a little bump in the road can’t stop a good musician from singing hit songs out of the same mouth which got him in trouble in the first place.

Practically everyone has heard about the rather indecent things Mayer said within the past few weeks about African Americans and his former girlfriend, Jessica Simpson.  Before I went to the concert, I watched numerous television interviews with fans, asking people what they thought about Mayer. Many were livid and claimed they would never listen to his music again, but was there any truth to those claims?

The show started at 8 p.m. and began with a performance by Michael Franti and Spearhead, a Bohemian-style band that just recently gained its claim to fame through the song “Hey World.” Since I had only heard one song from this band in the past – and on a commercial at that – I was a little skeptical about how their set would turn out.

I should have known that any band who is opening for such a big name like Mayer would have to be nothing but brilliant – and they were just that. I’ve never been one for the Jamaican-style music, but the energy of the band was unlike any I’ve witnessed in a long time. Not only did Michael Franti jump around the stage from 8-9 p.m., but he also ran into the audience and pulled at least eight people onto the stage to sing and dance with him.

After that extremely energetic performance, the crowd was ready for Mayer.  He finally came out at around 9:30 p.m., opening with his new song titled “Heartbreak Warfare.”

I was really nervous Mayer would apologize publically to the crowd in the middle of his performance like he did at his Feb. 10 show in Nashville and rehash his crude public comments despite the amount of time that has elapsed since then. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Mayer mentioned nothing about the issue, and continued on as if it never happened, as I hoped he would.

Mayer’s first set lasted about an hour, and contained songs such as “My Stupid Mouth”, “Half of my Heart” and his first commercially released single, “No Such Thing.” The first act also contained a Mayer-style version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s “Free Fallin’” and was followed up by various “jams”, as Mayer called them, which was about a five minute guitar solo.

Mayer began to make it obvious to the crowd as to why he is so charming to all of the Hollywood ladies. Not only did he maintain a very funny and charismatic attitude throughout the entire show, but he also arrived back for the second half wearing a Jason Kidd Dallas Mavericks jersey, joking he would have to return it to Kidd the next day in order for him to play.

The second half contained songs such as “Bigger than my Body” and “Neon.” After the show finally came to a close at about 11:15 p.m., the lights went out and, of course, an encore followed closely behind. Mayer made a convincing exit off the stage, only to return moments later for such an encore, which contained the songs “Who Says” and “Gravity.”

I left that concert not only extremely impressed by Mayer’s vocal talents, instrumental mastery and stage presence, but also very forgiving of Mayer’s former comments. I remembered something that a boy in one of my classes, senior James Boyles, said days before about Mayer when he discovered I was going to the concert and someone said that I was foolish to support his bad actions by attending his concert.

“What he says in public doesn’t change the way he performs his music,” Boyles said. “Even though he may say bad things, I still enjoy his music.”

I could not agree more. And I’m pretty sure every person in that arena left not only feeling satisfied by his performance, but also confident that Mayer’s sometimes foolish words could never affect his abundant and flawless talents.

John Mayer performs at the American Airlines Center on March 9. Photo by Loren Hughes.