The Santa Barbara Bowl in Santa Barbara, CA
Written by Jess.
The John Mayer concert was AMAZING!! I can't stress that enough. It was the best concert I've ever been to. I have lots to tell! lol. So get ready to read a lot (or skip a lot if you don't want to read it... lol).
So Nicole and I got to the Bowl at 3:00 or 3:15 (the concert started at 6:30, but we had GA, so we wanted to get front row). As soon as we stepped on the property, we both turned to each other and realized in the exact same moment that John Mayer and his band were doing sound check for "1983". That was cool. So we saw maybe 7 or so people sitting on the stone half-wall, and we figured we should join them. The girl in the front informed us that they were planning on starting a line, so we moved to the back. We were just sitting there hangin' out for a few minutes, when we heard John start sound check for "Your Body Is A Wonderland". Then when he got to the lyric, "I love the shape you take when crawling towards the pillow case," he instead sang, "I love the shape you take when my balls are in your face." Everyone cracked up. That was great. We waited around for a couple hours, just bein' bored and excited. It got close to 5, and by this time there was a line along the wall all the way out to the street. I started thinking about my camera, because I knew they didn't allow cameras in the venue, and I wanted to bring it. So I tried to find places to hide it. Nicole said the security saw me trying to hide it, and one girl walked down the line telling us that if we had cameras to please go put them in our car because they weren't allowed. The camera I brought was pretty nice, and it was my mom's, so I didn't want to lose it or get it taken away, so I ran it back to the car. Then, at 5 they started letting us in the venue. We had to hike up this monster of a hill to get to the bowl, but when we got there there were TWO people in the GA area, so we got front row spots, very close to the middle, and the only thing separating us from the stage was baracades about 4 feet from the stage. People started to come in a few at a time. Around 5:15, there was a scarce amount of people in the stands, and maybe 20 people in GA. Then John Mayer came out from the right side (the side we were slightly on), and said hey to us all. Someone asked him if he was going to play a song (I can't remember what, but it had the name Mary in it...), and John said it wasn't on the set list. Then this girl directly behind me said, "John, I have a gift for you." She said it was just a gag gift and handed him a little book that said "book of filth on it". He thought it was funny, and then she said she had another gift for him. She brought out a glow-in-the-dark bottle of massage oil. She couldn't reach, so Nicole handed it to him for her. He responded with, "Oh good, I've been using toothpaste, actually," and we all laughed. I think the entire time we were all kind of shocked, speechless, and amazingly surprised about how normal and down-to-earth he was. Someone asked why we couldn't bring cameras in, and he said it was fine and to take all the pictures we wanted. I wanted his shirt! lol. He came out wearing jeans and a sort of worn baseball shirt, red sleeves and white body, and it had a pic of Mickey Mouse on it, and said Disneyland below it. He also had this video camera on a tall pole. Then he started to leave, and Nicole yelled, "Love you John," then he yelled, "Love you too." I think that made Nicole feel special, lol. I was thinking later we should have called Sara on our cells and been like, "Here, say hi to our friend," because he seemed like he was cool enough to actually say hi to her, lol. But that didn't happen.
So the concert started at 6:30 as planned. The opening act was from Austrailia, and I think they were called the John Butler Trio. They were really good. The guitarist/singer was really good at his guitar solos, and they rock out really well. lol. They played 5 songs, and then Guster came out. They were good, and they played a longer set than the 1st band. Finally, John came out at like 8:15, and he started with "3x5". I don't remember the order of the songs he played, really. But there were some cool things about all the songs. He played, "No Such Thing", and introduced that as an "old 80's song"? go figure...lol. He played "Why Georgia" and "City Love". When he played "Back to You", during my favorite part, the very end, he's supposed to say, "doesn't it scare you, your will is not as strong, as it used to be" and then do the guitar riff, which I go ga-ga for. :) But instead he said, "doesn't it PISS YOU OFF..." During "My Stupid Mouth", at the part where it pauses, he went into "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", and then "Let's Hear It For The Boy", and then he did the end of "My Stupid Mouth." In "83" he kind of screwed up, and had to do the part over again. That was funny 'cause it made him more human, you know? He did an introduction to "Love Song For No One." He said, "I see some good looking girls in the audience. I see some good looking guys, too. I'm secure enough that I can say that. But it's all about the potential, right? Like when you're going to the mall. It's not the mall, it's the trip TO the mall." Then he started talking about how when guys don't get any they do this weird thing, and he demonstrated the weird face and walk guys do, which was hilarious. Then he said something about how you have Jack Johnson going on in the car, and then I proceeded to scream and wooo 'cause I love Jack Johnson! lol. Then he dedicated "Love Song For No One" to the single people here. At one point he also said, "Being up here is like smoking really old weed. You keep thinking, 'Are I really here?' But then you just tell yourself, 'No, so just fucking play.'"
But the thing that struck me that most, was the intense guitar playing, especially electric, and how into it he got. I could tell by the few times I've seen him on TV that he got really into his songs, but it's so much stronger live. Especially since we were just a few feet away from him. His mic stand was in the middle of two amps, and we were right directly in front of the right amp. During one of his guitar solos that's not a song, just a solo, he sat down on the amp, and it was amazing. I can't even describe it with words. This was so passionate, so emotional, so deep. It was like he was making love to his guitar. I just stared at him in awe, witnessing this connection between him and the guitar, and it was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in terms of music. Just that emotion, I could feel it, and I wanted so badly to be a part of it. That was the time that really really made an impression on me. It was amazing. I knew right then that John Mayer is a whole lot more than I thought he is, and he's probably our generation's answer to the legends made in the 60's. He'll be around for a long time, and he's a TRUE talent. I've never experienced anything like that.
During the concert I looked back into the GA section, and made a 1/3 of the people were dancing, noding their head, and singing along. It was cool, though, because since Nicole and I were in the very front dancing, rocking out, and singing along, he looked at us during the entire concert a lot. I remember at one point, I'm almost positive that it was during "My Stupid Mouth", my absolute favorite part of that song is "An indelible line was drawen, between what was good, what just slipped out, and what went wrong", and he looked at me during that lyric. It's not that he looked at me, I'm not all like, "Yay! He looked at me!!", because he looked at me lots of times other than that, but that specific time it was on that line, so it was cool.
So he did some more songs, and then he started to leave the stage after saying thank you. I started thinking, "What about 'Neon'?!" because it's my favorite song on the CD. Then, I kept yelling, "Neon! Neon!" I didn't see this, but Nicole said he looked at me when I yelled it. So he went off stage, and then after a few minutes everyone realized that yes, he was coming back for an encore. So the stage guy tuned and brought up an accoustic guitar and an electric one. Then John came back, picked up the accoustic one, and said something about how he had just written this song, and he was a little nervous because he had never played it in front of anyone before. I could tell he was nervous because he took a deep breath and held out his arms before he played it. I didn't catch the title, but it was a good song. Then he put down the accoustic, picked up the electric, and faced the band with his back towards us. I knew he was telling the band something, but I couldn't tell what. Nicole was at a better angle, so she saw him mouth to the band, "The fans want 'Neon'". Well, maybe the fans wanted it, but I was the only one screaming for it, lol. And then he played "Neon". How cool is that? He played my favorite song because of me. :) It was awesome! Then the concert ended.
We tried to find a way to get backstage or meet him or something. Security was friendly for the most part, and one of the guards said that he had already left in his Explorer by then because he had to be in Berkley tonight for a show. Although his tour bus was still at the top of the hill... We finally cleared out of there, and we were just sitting on the stone wall, where we waited for them to let us in hours before, and we tried to decide what we should do. I heard some girl asking (practically begging) some other girls for a cigarette, but the girls didn't have any. Nicole smokes, so we let her bum one of Nicole. We started talking to her, and she was nice. She had a guest sticker on because her good friend is on tour with John Mayer (she's the merchandise girl). She was telling us that she has met John before, but just briefly, but she's heard from people that know him that he's pretty arrogant. That kind of bummed me out. But we went home a few minutes after that.
Overall the concert was a blast. I can't get enough of him now. He's my new favorite artist (at least single artist). At the concert I got his old CD, Inside Wants Out. I have read that that CD, which only has 8 tracks on it, was a demo type CD for record labels when he was trying to get signed. It's good, and it has a lot of older versions of the songs from Room For Squares. Ack! I had SO much fun!!
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