There were plenty of signs in the sea of 13,000 people at Tampa’s Amalie Arena on Friday night, and John Mayer noticed a handful of them.
One said: “UR My Divorce Prezzie Thank You John! #MusicHeals”. Mayer, on the second leg of his solo tour, acknowledged the message and congratulated the sign holder, but also pointed out that it’s possible to feel two things at one time.
“It’s gotta be bittersweet, right?,” he asked before launching into “Age Of Worry.” That track from his 2012 album Born And Raised tells the listener to not fear walking alone. “Don’t be scared to like it,” he adds in the tune.
And in some ways, the setlist for these Mayer outings is all about that very thing: being alone.
Every major tour of the soon-to-be-46-year-old’s career has been a band affair. His last trip to Amalie Arena in support of Sob Rock was perhaps his best local show to date, thanks, in no small part, to the phenomenal band around him. But on Friday, Mayer arrived with just an army of guitars, techs to tune and deliver them, and a delightfully-unpredictable lineup of songs.
He played requests. He also teased deep cuts, but only conjured up three (“Hummingbird,” recorded with the late B.B. King on the bluesman’s 2005 album B.B. King & Friends, Heavier Things opener “Clairity,” and Continuum favorite “In Repair”). There also wasn’t one solo-electric song in the set, a sure disappointment for the Stevie Ray Vaughan disciples who paid the price of admission.
And while the nerdiest of Mayer-philes may have been left longing for “Comfortable” and “Man On the Side” (which he’s been playing as of late), or “St. Patrick’s Day” (which he hasn’t played since March), Friday’s 22-song set delivered not just “biggies” (hits from Room From Squares punched hard, as did selections from his best album Continuum), but special glimpses into songs that felt wholly different in the solo setting than they do on the more than 20 million records Mayer has sold to date.
He set the tone on show opener “Heartbreak Warfare,” where the wincing on the 2009 cut transformed into a straight up 12-string anthem. Two hours later, Mayer bookended the set by revisiting the album with a set-highlight run through “Edge Of Desire,” where the stripped-back staccato fretwork on verses was juxtaposed to the song’s big choruses delivered on the 12-string, upper-deck of a double-necked Martin acoustic. While the arrangement felt like a moment in a song’s life, about two weeks from inception, where it grows legs but has not yet formed into the fleshed-out version, it also showcased the maturation that’s been a hallmark of Mayer’s recent output.
The grown-up feel extended to tried and true fan favorites (“Neon” was the most smooth-jazz, virtuoustic, WSJT thing Tampa’s arena scene has seen live in a while). “You’re Gonna Live Forever In Me” was an intimate moment where Mayer whistled directly into fans’ souls. On “Changing,” he looped piano and picked up his signature PRS strat for a conservative solo before adding an extra passage to the cut. The whole of the performance felt like an apartment hang where your host entertains guests in earnest, and hits the piano not to show off, but to just be a friend. Reasonable, adult, stuff.
Aging might have played a role in the show, too.
The allusion to mortality on “Stop This Train” hit particularly hard, but there were times in the show when it felt like the crowd—not chatty, thank god—never really managed to meet the moment. Singalongs on Rooms For Squares cuts impressed Mayer, but elsewhere—and especially on an encore tribute to Tom Petty—Tampeños seemed a bit tired and unable to create a memorable, crowd-driven moment that pushed the show to another level.
That’s not to say that the city wasn’t memorable.
Before a tear-worthy take on “In Your Atmosphere,” Mayer recalled a local gig in his “drinking days” where he stayed in town and visited a strip club “that was shaped like an alien spaceship” (these days after shows, he probably jets back to the Four Seasons in New York).
“I thought I might have dreamed it,” he told Tampa fans. “But on the way here today I saw it, and I thought, ‘Son of a bitch, you do have an alien craft strip club.’”
Mayer’s future is unclear. He recently said goodbye to Dead & Co.. He doesn’t have a record label. And while he’s got a new SiriusXM station to work on, it’s unclear when the man with the stupid mouth will be back in town.
So after last night, Tampa’s John Mayer fans will be alone. They’ll have to get on to living without him. But if last night’s show was any kind of a sign, alone is kind of a bittersweet place to be.
Setlist
Heartbreak Warfare
Love on the Weekend
Wild Blue
Age of Worry
No Such Thing
Why Georgia
Who Says
Clarity
Neon
In Your Atmosphere
You’ll Live Forever In Me
Changing
Stop This Train>Homeward Bound (tease)
Hummingbird
Daughters
Your Body Is A Wonderland
Slow Dancing In A Burning Room
If I Ever Get Around To Living
Double Neck
In Repair
Edge Of Desire
—
Born and Raised
Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty)
UPDATED: 10/23/23 1:26 a.m. “Hummingbird” was not a Leon Russell cover.
