On a casual, rainy Saturday evening as the cramped Luas bound for Dublin 1 (a historic postal district on the northside of Dublin) stopped at The Point, it spat out an entire crowd at the station. The crowd moved in unison, making their way towards the 3Arena, and the queue outside the arena gradually swelled into a never-ending swarm. “I cannot believe we are here to see John Mayer!” my friend Avril exclaimed. She had made sure I joined her on this special evening to watch her favourite artiste perform on the closing night of his sold-out solo tour.
Paloma (right) was transported back in time when witnessing (left) John Mayer in concert @paloma_majumder/Instagram
N for Nostalgia
Inside the arena, the crowd buzzed right through the entire opening act before it was finally time. John Mayer made his way to the stage and there was chatter amongst the fans about what his first song would be. As concert sets go, it would seem that Mayer would start with something unassuming — maybe one of his earlier songs — and build on from there but when he grabbed his guitar to play the riff of perhaps his most enduring hit, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, the audience erupted. My mind was instantly transported to 2006 — a 12-year-old Paloma discovering John Mayer for the first time, bent over LimeWire on a computer screen, pouring her palpable teenage angst into this very song and mourning a heartbreak that she had yet to suffer. My nostalgia was quickly invaded though by the cheers around me and I realised that a most memorable night awaited me.
The beauty of simplicity
It is always nice to go to a concert and come back with the rush of experiencing the display of sheer visual extravagance, but this show did the exact opposite of that. With the simplest of production designs, the only true extravagance that people had the fortune of taking back home that night was that of his skill as a musician and a vocalist. For the rest of the night, we were in awe of how one man could command an entire arena full of people: no band, no tracks, no fancy instruments (barring his beautiful and rare Martin double-neck acoustic)... just Mayer, his voice and his guitar. As a performer, it was an incredibly humbling experience for me to see such brilliant showmanship completely stripped down to its original essence; a lesson in owning yourself on stage. Now, of course, this is easier to pull off when you are John Mayer.
John Mayer during his performance Instagram
Mayer’s personal touch
The exquisite curation of the show and the setlist were not limited by just its design. Mayer took requests from signs and floating screams if it clicked his fancy and played it like it was preordained. And while he made his way from Last Train Home to Who Says to Neon, his solos became more and more prominent and had us all stare in amazement. It was particularly gratifying to see older video clips of Mayer, in between segments, talking about his music and his position in the industry, a truly vulnerable display of his artistry and his personality in this live performance. I was pleasantly surprised when he took to the piano for a couple of songs as he serenaded the Irish audience with a sea chanty followed by You’re Gonna Live Forever in Me.
Avril Sasha Damani at the concert with a special message Instagram
Towards the end of the night, just as the audience sang in unison to Your Body Is a Wonderland, it was evident that John Mayer had, in true Mr. Darcy fashion, bewitched everyone in the theatre, “body and soul”. Ending his set with Gravity was only fair to all the early-year Mayer fans in the audience, especially Avril who shed a tear at the beauty of the moment. The cold Dublin air had nothing on the heart-warming experience that was John Mayer Solo.
