John Mayer has won multiple Grammys, and this concert showcases his multiple musical sides. Make that three. The first set of this concert at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles features him alone onstage in an acoustic set for a pop-folk sequence; the second set features the John Mayer Trio (Mayer, bassist Pino Palladino, and drummer Steve Jordan) in a mostly blues sequence with a touch of R&B and funk; while the third set finds Mayer joined onstage by his full band, playing easy listening pop-rock with (again) an occasional touch of funk. Of the 22 songs performed here, Mayer had a hand in writing 17 of them, with the remaining songs being covers, including ones of Jimi Hendrix, Tom Petty, B.B. King, and Otis Redding. Intercut among the concert footage are behind-the-scenes segments and a split-up interview footage of Mayer talking up a storm while he drives, his doggie in the passenger seat.
You get the feeling that this guy is as restless as his pooch. Part of him wants to play to the tune of success, and another part of him wants to do his own musical thing. Since I can only play the radio, I have no advice to give musicians. But I will say this: though he throws himself into every single song, he seems to have the most fun doing his blues thing with the trio. The cheesy songs ("Your Body is a Wonderland" earned him a Grammy, and "Daughters" has become a wedding standard) have paid the bills, but Mayer has played the blues with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, and B.B. King, and I'm betting that there's a bluesman inside him just waiting to shed completely his pop-rock image.
That's going to be tough, because one scan of the audience tells you that he's a favorite with women, who really seem to respond to the sentimental songs he writes about relationships . . . and females. Whether it was his idea or a someone at his record label's, he even seems to write for women. After singing all those sappy songs, no wonder he feels the need to sing the blues. There was a hint of it in his Grammy-winning album, "Continuum," and so I would guess that Mayer will continue to move in that direction.
What this concert shows is how accomplished and how passionate Mayer is about his music. Whether he's playing acoustic or electric, his guitar-work is stellar, with quick-fingered rolls and up-the-neck playing that never falters. When he's alone onstage, it sounds as if there are two guitars, because he plays the guitar the way people play piano-with two distinctly different movements, made possible by his quickness. His fingers seem to glide effortlessly, as does his voice, which slips easily from a raspy blues voice to a smooth falsetto and back again. He's just a sensitive and soulful guy, which is why the ladies love him. I think I saw only a dozen guys in the audience, and they were probably dragged there by their girlfriends and wives. But if these guys were smart, they were taking notes. When women respond to someone this totally, it's tempting to try to figure out how he does it. And guess what? It's not physical. Some performers gyrate, some performers prance, some performers play to the crowd . . . but not this guy. He stands in one spot-in this case, on an oriental rug onstage-and taps his left foot to the beat of the music. The closest he came to playing physically to the crowd was pointing at them toward the end of one of those heaping portions of cheese. Mostly, it's the soulful thing and the lyrics that rope them in. And we've known this since Frankie Valli and the Bee Gees: real men can sing falsetto, and if those guys can hold the high notes, it's really music to their female audience's ears.
Some concert producers aim for a "you are there" feeling, which is almost impossible to capture. Others opt for quick cuts and a mix of intense close-ups and body parts to make it seem more active than it might be in person. The producers of "Where the Light Is" opted for a 360 treatment. Not only do we see Mayer from the crowd's perspective, but we also see him from behind as he's playing, with the crowd in the distance, and we get so close to him onstage that we can even read the scrolling teleprompter at his feet. There are occasional, interesting shots from above, too-some of which are pullbacks, and others of which are gentle 360s. We also get the view from the middle seats, with the camera panning shadow-heads in the foreground as we glimpse an animated Mayer in between them. Though there's constant variety and movement, the camera work never seems over-caffeinated. It adds as much interest to the concert as the lighting, which is mostly a darkened stage lit by a few selective spots. A few colored lights come out for the third set, but otherwise it's a pretty bare-bones treatment that shines the light on Mr. Mayer without gimmickry. If there were smoke or mirrors at this concert, it was in the women's purses.
But the one thing guys didn't have to take note of was Mayer's ad libs. His attempts at humor weren't very good, which is probably why he mostly played. The car interview footage substituted for most of the concert banter . . . and that's another story. Only fans will appreciate the interview material. People new to Mayer and his music looking for insight won't find much of interest. It's all about him, and his "feelings," which again makes me think of his audience. Every time he started to talk about himself, I got up to check the time, grab a beer, rearrange my sock drawer--anything I could think of. But I don't imagine the women were doing such things.
I actually found the behind-the-scenes footage more interesting. These guys were awfully low-key as they went through the corridors and stairwells to get to or leave the stage-kind of like lunch-box carrying blue-collar types. There was very little conversation, and one supposes Mayer likes it that way. He's pretty low-key onstage, too, wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans for the first and third sets, and decking out in Beatles-era white shirts and ties and jackets with his trio.
Here's the song list:
Neon (acoustic)
Stop This Train (acoustic)
In Your Atmosphere (cheesy acoustic)
Daughters (more cheesy acoustic, with a singing audience backup)
Free Fallin' (sensitive soulful acoustic)
Everyday I Have the Blues (trio)
Wait Until Tomorrow (trio)
Who Did You Think I Was (trio)
Come When I Call (trio, with Mayer doing his B.B. King impersonation)
Good Love is on the Way (trio, edging into the world of Grand Funk)
Out of My Mind (trio)
Vultures (trio)
Bold as Love (trio)
Waiting on the World to Change (full band, return to light pop-rock)
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room (full band, with sighing female audience)
Why Georgia (full band, with women wondering, Why Jessica?)
The Heart of Life (full band, with cheese)
I Don't Need No Doctor (full band)
Gravity (full band)
I Don't Trust Myself (full band, and me neither)
Belief (full band; does anyone have a Bic lighter?)
I'm Gonna Find Another You (full band, his walk-off closer. Encore? Nope. Adulation? He knows it's there, and doesn't need to fish for it.)
The encore is really Mayer sitting on a Mulholland Drive hilltop playing his guitar, plugged into a speaker. It's the way the film opened, with him playing in daylight, and it closes with Mayer playing at twilight. Clever concept, and it probably works better than an encore.
This concert will be a must-have for fans, and it looks so good in Blu-ray that it might even prompt a few to go out and buy a player, finally. Non-Mayer fans also will warm to this concert, because the cheesy songs are palatable if you focus on this guy's amazing guitar work and vocals. He's a musical force, able to shift gears effortlessly.
Video:
I don't have to tell anyone how tricky concert lighting is, and how often we get errant lasers streaking across the screen or halos because of the stage lighting. But the video for "Where the Light Is" is really clean and precise-looking. Given the darkened stage for most of the evening, I can't imagine that the DVD would come close to capturing the detail in shadows that this 1080p print offers (VC-1 codec, BD50). Colors are vivid too, despite the harsh spots, and there's only the slightest bit of grain in some of the candid sequences. Shot in Super 35mm and presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the concert stuff is pretty flawless in terms of cinematography and video quality.
Audio:
There are two audio options: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and PCM 2.0, both in English and both 96kHz/24 bit. It's a coin toss, as far as I'm concerned, but I preferred Mayer's voice on the PCM because it sounded a little fuller. There were a few weird moments on the PCM track, though, as when Mayer sideman David Ryan Harris is shown on-camera playing his guitar solo and we get the sound coming out of the left main speaker. There are a few more disjointed moments like that because of the channeling. The 5.1 TrueHD channeled the instruments more naturally, but Mayer's voice was slightly . . . "muffled" is too strong of a word, but I might call it "restrained." I preferred the PCM, and those head-snapping moments of strange channeling were too few to really bother me.
Extras:
Okay, call me a curmudgeon, but when I watch a concert DVD/BD I want a booklet that has lyrics and credits. Instead, we get a six-page booklet that's all photos, with the front inside cover a repeat of the song line-up from the back cover, and the back inside cover all of the credits . . . in like 4 point type. This booklet is all style, and no substance. That's kind of what the other features are like, too. Sony has really embraced the BD-Live concept, but they (and everyone else) are still trying to figure out what to do with it. Well, I'm no expert, but with an Internet connection I'd guess that fans would want access to Mayer's appearance schedule, and (ideally) a Q&A where they might get lucky and have their question answered by Mayer himself. Or maybe there'd be concert footage from a different gig, or a really cool practice session, or footage of Mayer on vacation or something. Instead, the only BD-Live feature is a "Belief" backstage performance that requires 57MB of memory to download (and a Profile 2.0 player to deliver). The only other bonus feature, aside from a "Slow Dancing on Mulholland Drive" extended clip of Mayer playing and talking, requires a Profile 1.1 player, as it involves a "bonusview" picture-in-picture experience with a camera cam attached to Jordan and Palladino.
Bottom Line:
I don't have to tell John Mayer fans that this is a great concert, but I can add that it's a great overall Blu-ray presentation. This guy can play, and this guy can sing, and this Blu-ray captures it all.
Buy Where The Light Is [DVD]
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