Concert review: John Mayer delivers a smooth but mediocre show

Photo by Kyle Kurlick // Buy this photo

John Mayer performing Friday night at FedExForum.

Photo by Kyle Kurlick

John Mayer performing Friday night at FedExForum.

Singer-songwriter John Mayer has been garnering more attention for his loutish public statements — specifically a February Playboy interview in which he spoke less than respectfully of former girlfriend Jessica Simpson and made several racial comments — than his music of late.

But the 17,000 people who turned out to see the Grammy winner and his band play FedExForum Friday night seemed in a forgiving mood, more than willing to let his tabloid transgressions pass in exchange for two hours of mellow pop rock.

To his credit, Mayer, following a Feb. 10 Nashville concert appearance at which he made a heartfelt apology for his jerky behavior, seemed to have learned his lesson and was trying to be on his best behavior.

“There’s a good vibe in this city tonight,” he told the audience Friday. “Let me not bring it down with any more of my banter.”

And yet he did manage to ruin what should have been a nice moment when he spotted a woman in the audience holding a sign that read “Chubby Married Cougar Needs Hug.” Mayer invited the woman and her friend on stage to claim their prized embrace. As they left the stage, however, he commented, unnecessarily, “I don’t know what that sign meant. She didn’t look married to me.”

Way to stay classy, John.

For the most part, though, Mayer followed his own advice, letting his music do the talking. Mayer’s FedExForum appearance came just two weeks after that of Eric Clapton, the guitar god to whom the 32-year-old Mayer is often compared. Though he shied away from the kind of long, lyrical passages for which Slow Hand is known, Mayer mostly proved worthy of the comparison.

The one-time Berklee College of Music student turned in a number of economical, well-executed, and tasteful solos on songs like “Assassins” and even Robert Johnson’s blues classic “Crossroads Blues,” played in the style of Clapton’s ’60s band Cream. But really the guitarist Mayer closely resembles is Jimi Hendrix, never more so than on the main set closer “Gravity,” which climaxed with the lanky picker pulling out all the stops.

Unfortunately, all that virtuosity was in service of not much. Mayer is comparable to Clapton in another, less flattering way, namely his taste for middling material. For all of his outrageous behavior in the celebrity press, it never seeps into his songs, and I mean that in a bad way. As a songwriter, Mayer is Jay Leno. He’s a Volvo. He’s the Nerf football of rock-and-roll, his laid-back adult contemporary sound soft and round and safe for all ages.

The light soul-rock grooves of “Belief” and “Perfectly Lonely” may get Mayer lots of radio airplay, but when strung back to back they add up to a very dull evening. And it is nothing short of embarrassing to entreat the audience, “Let’s jam,” and then play a piece of mid-tempo pabulum like “Half Of My Heart,” complete with a segue into Marc Cohn’s “Walking In Memphis.”

The mediocrity and blandness sucked down not just Mayer but also his excellent band, led by A-list sidemen Robbie McIntosh on guitar and Mayer’s sometime producing and songwriting partner, drummer Steve Jordan. Fighting to get above the material, the pair did manage to deliver some of the night’s best moments.

Also providing a counterpoint to Mayer’s largely sleepy set was the animated performance of opening act Michael Franti & Spearhead. The multi-ethnic Bay Area singer was literally all over the place during his infectiously Pollyanna-ish, reggae-inflected show.

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