Sing, Sing a Song.

I'm not usually a big fan of concerts in that I'd much rather spend my money on CDs that I can play repeatedly than on a one night event. But I made an exception to see two of my favorite musicians last night; Guster and John Mayer.

I absolutely loved the Guster set. I've been a huge fan for a few years, and their performance lived up to my expectations. They're coming to Clowes Hall at Butler on April 20th, and I'll probably get tickets. I still enjoy the fact that they are not very well known, and therefore, they stick with the music and don't do the whole "rockstar" thing. They simply played their music and transitioned from song to song, rather than stopping to talk to the audience when you can't understand them anyway.

John Mayer was a different story. I had seen him last fall, when it was just he, his guitar, and a drummer. This year it was he, his guitar, a drummer, and 6 other people on stage playing instruments. The songs he sang were either (1) not his own, or (2) didn't sound like they do on his albums. One of the girls with me actually said she was bored through part of it and people were leaving halfway through the show. He would start playing a song, and then go into a 5 minute guitar solo where he showed his various techniques, including using a drumstick to play the guitar.

I won't dispute that the guy can play the guitar, but I didn't pay 50 bucks to listen to half an hour of guitar solos. He also played a few songs from his next album, including opening the encore with that. I thought encores were where you played the crowd's favorites. And a few times during the show, he gave the audience a choice between different songs that he could play. Once the choice was between "No Such Thing" and "Remedy by Jason Mraz." I found it funny that quite a few people wanted Remedy.

He kept taking time between songs to talk to the audience, but he mumbles like crazy and I only understood about 1/3 of the words over all the screaming girls. There were some funny moments though. At one point he took someone's cell phone and carried on a conversation while still performing. I can only imagine the girl hyperventilating on the other end of that call. And I will never understand why people cheer loudly when an artist substitutes the word "shit" for "stuff" in a song. Come on people, have you never heard the word before.

All in all it was a good concert. Not the best I've been to, which is saying a lot since I've been to exactly 3 concerts (2 John Mayer and 1 Weezer), not counting the "contemporary Christian" concerts of my Jesus Town youth.