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TORONTO - To coincide with announcing a national tour set for February, John Mayer entertained a sold-out crowd at Toronto’s Sound Academy with a polished, slick 100-minute set.
And while that tightness was quite surprising considering he’s only done a few shows supporting his top-charting new album Battle Studies, Mayer and his band sounded like they were ready to record a live DVD on Tuesday night.
Perhaps that may explain the boom camera filming everything and hovering over the fans throughout, from the opening power pop of Heartbreak Warfare to Friends, Lovers Or Nothing which came about 100 minutes later.
Regardless, the 32-year-old guitarist dipped his fingers into several genre pies with relative easy, occasionally sacrificing a lengthy solo but showing his chops on the lengthy, soulful Gravity from his Continuum album.
In fact, it was this more soulful, blues-tinged material which composed most of the set, with only a smattering of older material including the folksy nugget Why Georgia and the radio-friendly Bigger Than My Body making the cut.
Sporting a black t-shirt and thanking the crowd for making him feel brand new, Mayer hit his stride early on with Vultures, a slightly sultry groove setting the tone for the give-and-take with the predominantly female audience.
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“I love you too,” he replied to a fan after the song, quickly leading into I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You) with a guitar solo resembling Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour to some extent.
Mayer’s tongue has occasionally competed with his playing for sharpness, leading him to tell one reporter recently he would sodomize their editor after a series of inane questions. The only verbal gem on this night might have been referring to his various series of girlfriends. “When your last name becomes a verb, you know you’ve shamed yourself,” he said.
One moment where he certainly shamed nobody was his cover of Crossroads, grooving it up a bit more than Eric Clapton’s rendition yet still packing a punch. Here Mayer also seemed much looser, sounding like he came from the Chitlin’ Circuit as the boogie blues riffs garnered a surprisingly strong response.
That should’ve been the only cover he attempted though, as later in the encore he paid tribute to Tom Petty with Free Fallin’, a rather bland version on this night which was indeed heartbreaking to say the least. That Petty vibe fared much better with the simple melodic pop which oozed out of Half Of My Heart.
Other highlights included Waiting On The World To Change as Mayer asked if Toronto had groove or not. Several minutes later, after fleshing out the coda with drummer Steve Jordan and keyboardist Charlie Wilson, the answer was evident.
A few more songs couldn’t have hurt but Mayer probably kept a few surprises knowing full well he’d be back here at a bigger venue early in 2010.