Customer Rating:      Summary: Excellent Comment: This is a truly excellent album. THe acoustic sets are superb and show John Mayer off as the brilliant guitarist that he is. The trio sets and in deed some of the full band songs sound very much like Jimmie Vaughan. It is excellent, the songs are his best, from all previous album, but live. The small twiddly bits between/ leading into songs are very good and original. I would definitely recommend this any day to anyone who like rock, blues or jazz.(I mostly listen to metal by Mayer is the Jazz man that I like, he is a shinning example for all those in his genre) *****. Buy it.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Hyde Park miss Comment: The rest of my family had a day out in central London and ended up in Hyde Park where the Clapton concert was on with John Mayer playing at the time they were there. Apparently my 8 year old said 'that sounds like daddy playing guitar.' Which proves that even John mayer can have a bad day...
The acoustic songs aren't amazing and the trio stuff, whilst incredibly well played, sounds more like an SRV tribute than an artist with his own voice. Still, all of disk 2 gives you John with his full band and a great live set it is too and its had me thinking about buying the dvd.
The John Mayer back catalogue is quite varied and not all in the vein of the modern blues/rock you get here. Be interesting to see what he does next.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Not just for the blues buff Comment: This is the first I have heard of John Mayer and I am very impressed indeed. An advantage of such live albums is that you get a sense of immediacy which, with a singer/songwriter working mainly at the blues end of the spectrum, can often be lost in the confines of a studio. In this case Mayer clearly connects well with his audience and by splitting his perfomance into three distinct styles he shows off a wide repertoire of skills.
The first section is solo acoustic, very much in the style of a typical singer songwriter, with songs on the folk/blues borderline typified by a version of Tom Petty's Freefalling which is really rather good. Mayer's husky voice and exemplary guitar playing remind me a bit of Kelly Joe Phelps without the slide guitar.
The second section of disc one is performed as a trio, and allows Mayer to rock out a bit, very much in the style of Hendrix (there are a couple of covers) this is still rooted in the blues with a hint of jazz thrown in.
The whole of the second disc is performed by the John Mayer band and is not the rock wig out I was expecting. Covering a variety of styles and songs my immediate thought was that it was most like John Hiatt overall, with a hint of brass here and there, a mellow fuzzy guitar style and a fair bit of funk and gentle soul. For me the standout track of this disc and indeed the album is Slow dancing in a burning room, which is a Thin Lizzyesque ballad which is ended by a couple of minutes of twin guitar soaring and tumbling, very much in the manner of Gorham and Robertson.
Overall a fine introduction to this artist which has encouraged me to seek out the back catalogue.
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