I’m back, and I’m about to write about Mr. John Mayer.

John, if you’re reading this out there somewhere from cyberspace (because I know you’re pretty net savvy and you probably google yourself just like all the rest of us do), I want to commend you on being a brilliant businessman. You come out with great songs that get people singer for no apparent reason, the media loves you and you make money. Then after the second album that was pretty much more of the same, you decided to do whatever the hell you wanted to do. And that was to basically try and be the next SRV. And ya know what? People have eaten that up, too. It’s pretty amazing. So, I congratulate you good sir!

But onto my comments about the show. The openers, Onerepublic were actually pretty good. I’m probably the only person in America that hasn’t heard that “Too Late to ‘Pologize” song. But I’m not surprised about that, either, ’cause like… I don’t listen to the radio, so I’m not hip to what the young people listen to these days.

Then came John. Out with his Strat, and he loaded up and started playing by himself (with a VERY nice classic strat tone, by the way) and played some cool licks, and I thought to myself “here we go, this should be awesome!”

Then he played a couple songs, and then I was done. By the time he got done with about the fifth song, I felt like I heard everything I was going to hear that night, and felt a restlessness that I had never felt at a concert before. And that only increased throughout the night as I realized more and more that I just didn’t care about what he was playing. *gasp!* Cue the tension music!

I didn’t care? Me? I didn’t care about a fellow guitar player? I was thinking it was just me, for a while, but my friend that I was with was sort of feeling the same way. So, then this left the question to be… why? Why did I just not care what he played?

This is what I’ve come up with:
John Mayer is not the greatest guitar player since Charlie Christian as most people would have you believe.
I’m just too freaking picky.
Pentatonic Scales are boring unless you know how to use them effectively.
Etheral 6/8 blues jams are entirely uninteresting to watch.
Please don’t solo on every song. Or at least, if there’s a solo, let someone else take it occasionally.
The SRV thing: Drop it. It’s not cool.
Noise and cacophony are great… Your style of music does not allow for a noise jam… Please do not ever do that again.
The Tom Jackson Method: Use it. Learn how to build a killer show.
Entertain your audience at all points… You should not allow there to be time when someone can even feel like they can sit down, much less go to the bathroom and get a fresh drink.
Please stop soloing until you learn to play more interesting things.
Play more old stuff. Room for Squares was freaking amazing. I know you don’t want to have that pop image anymore, but there were some really, really great songs on there. Like Neon. Play Neon. A lot. Matter of fact, play that all day.
Also, when you do play the old stuff, don’t just play it straight down like “OK, there’s like four people here that remember these songs, so I’ll just do halfway versions of them”. There’s some great progressions on there that’d be awesome to solo over… Oh, but wait, then you can’t just wail on the pentatonic for 15 minutes can you? Hmm… what a dilemma. But seriously… Everyone in the Amphitheater was singing along with No Such Thing and Why Georgia. Play more of those.
Did I mention fewer 6/8 blues jams?

Ultimately, I feel kinda disappointed with something that I really was looking forward to enjoying quite a bit. I had fun, though… So that was cool. Also, I’m not saying that I can do better by any stretch. It just felt very amateurish and self-indulgent, and that’s not cool for a show that I spent a decent amount of money on.

On the subject of pentatonics, who do you know that can take just a pentatonic and make it totally interesting and awesome to listen to for however long they play for. Eric Johnson tries to, but he’s too inconsistent and “meh”. Eric Clapton… he does a good job I think, even though he repeats licks a lot. Joe Satch plays the pentatonics a lot, he repeats his licks a lot, too, but it doesn’t matter because the material surrounding it makes up for it, I think.

Anyone else you can think of? Do tell.