John Mayer Concert Review

 John Mayer
 ZzzQuil World Tour
 Little Caesars Arena
 Detroit, Michigan
 August 2, 2019 

When it comes to John Mayer, I have always felt it was like “The Emperors New Clothes”.  How did this guy manage to bamboozle everyone except me and Chris Robinson? We all know John Mayer sucks, but we are afraid to say it. Why!? Does he have nude photos of all of you? This music is Mediocrity at its best! Mayer’s music is like a Ken Doll: safe, boring, non threatening and no genitals. 

So obviously by now, we know I am going into the concert with an open mind. Detroit, a great Rock n Roll city. Iggy Pop, MC5, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger. A lot of history here, so who let this douche John Mayer in? 

It is my first time in Detroit and my first time at Little Caesers Arena. A nice new arena that  opened in 2017. It cost $863 million to build with $864 million coming from the taxpayers. It appears to be the only safe block in Detroit. 

I finally get inside and i am overcome by the smell of perfume and estrogen. I am surrounded by 50K Tween/Teen girls, confused boys and Oprah Book Club reading, Suburban Soccer Moms. I believe they refer to these people as basic, you know, the pumpkin spice latte crowd. I pass the ‘Merch’ table, and they are selling John Mayer Diaphragms and IUD’s.

It’s showtime! WTF am i looking at!? WTF am i listening to!? Mayer comes out dressed like the guy working at the ‘Geek Squad’ counter at ‘Best Buy’. I like my rock stars to look like rock stars. This is the only concert i have ever been to that starts out on a low note and slowly descends into mind numbing boredom. 

This tour is sponsored by the sleep aid ‘ZzzQuil’. It is a huge snorefest. Good thing I had a newspaper to read. The only thing worse than Mayer’s music is his between song banter. Who needs ‘ZzzQuil’, I would like to hire Mayer to come over my house and banter when i am having trouble falling asleep. 

Now on to the music. Mayer is adequate on the guitar. He knows all the notes and practices his blues scales, but he writes sappy, tween girl, love songs. It reminds me of those guys that pimp their Toyota Celica’s. You can put a $3K Hood scoop on the car, but hey, it’s still a Toyota Celica. The same with Mayer’s music. You can play all of these pointless insincere guitar solos, but hey, the songs are still Toyota Celica’s. 

Mayer covered a Beyonce song. The only thing worse than a Beyonce song, is an acoustic cover of a Beyonce song, with harmonica! There is a cover of the Prince song “The Beautiful Ones”, it is the best part of the show because Mayer was not involved at all. Some other guy was singing and playing Guitar. Then Mayer covered “Let My Love Open The Door” by Pete Townshend. It is possibly the worst cover of any song since William Shatner covered “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. Pete Townshend wishes he was dead so he could turn over in his grave! I wish someone would have pulled the fire alarm or something.

There are a lot of nondescript generic songs to follow. Hey wait a minute didn’t he already play this song? Lots of ridiculous Guitar solo faces, to make it seem like they are better than they are. Mayer then has the nerve to take an intermission. He has barely moved more than an inch the entire night. 76 year old Mick Jagger dances, gyrates and runs for 2 hours straight without an intermission. 

“Your Body is a Wonderland” is a catchy tune, but only Mayer could turn a good idea into a G-Rated sappy song that goes nowhere. Motley Crue could have done wonders with that song title. Mayer then ruins The Grateful Dead song “Friend of The Devil” and mercifully closes the show out with more complete boredom. If you find yourself at a John Mayer concert, you know you have made some poor life choices.