John Mayer - Where the Light Is - Live in LA - CD Review

This live performance captured December 8, 2007 at the NOKIA Thraetre in Los angeles, CA is a mix of three styles of John Mayer. Starting off with Accoustic, getting into the Trio of John, Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino and the a set with his full band. This is the audio only review. I will add comments once I've seen the DVD.

The first set of music is just John playing an acoustic guitar. It's a nice set of 5 songs including Neon, Stop This Train, In Your Atmosphere, Daughters & Free Fallin. The version of Daughters is really nice, but the whole set is actually pretty good. There's some nice guitar work and some good tunes including a little TP & The HB song Free Fallin'. John Mayer does a nice mellow version of it.

Now we get into the Trio set with John, Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino. Obviously we are going to hear more of the bluesy sid eof things. It starts off with Everyday I Have the Blues that has a good sound and a nice little solo jam in it. It really shows that John isn't just a pop singer, but that he can pull out some other styles of music.

I saw John play a few years back right before he did the Trios set and cd. He was playing with a couple other artists and he played a few of his pop tunes and then he spent the next 30 minutes sing blues and jamming. So that was about the time that I realized that he had a lot more talent than just being a Dave Matthews type pop singer.

This blues set has 8 songs all with some good jams and bluesy beats. I really likes the song Out of my Mind, it was a good jam. I liked the comment John made "Let me first say how wonderful it feels to know that we just launched into slow blues and 7,000 people in LA went nuts. All is not lost." Just a nice little quote showing that people appreciate the change in style. He finished of the set with Bold as Love from Jimi Hendrix and played a really nice version of it with a sweet jam, just like Jimi used to. Now I'm not saying he;s better than Jimi was, but the kid does have talent.

Third set brings out the whole band and kicks off with Waiting on the World to Change. Certainly a little different than the acoustic and blues trio, but still Mayer has some good flavor in the songs he chose for this section. There's something nice about listening to all the flavors. John does show that he's really a stron artist with all the styles of music. I'd say he sounds a bit like ave Matthews in the full band set, but distiguishes himself with all the styles of music he plays.

This really is a nice live performance and I look forward to watching on DVD later this week. I would certainly recommend picking up the cd for sure and why not the DVD as well since they both are running $9.99 at Best Buy and Amazon as well. This is a great set, pick it up. Actually This week 7/01/08 Target has a limited edition version cd/dvd combo with extra material on the dvd for $17.98, but will be $24.98 once the sale is over.

Disc Tracklisting:

Acoustic Set:

1.Neon
2.Stop This Train
3.In Your Atmosphere
4.Daughters
5.Free Fallin'

Trio Set:

6.Everyday I Have The Blues
7.Wait Until Tomorrow
8.Who Did You Think I Was
9.Come When I Call
10.Good Love Is On The Way
11.Out Of My Mind
12.Vultures
13.Bold As Love

Band Set:

14.Waiting On The World To Change
15.Slow Dancing In A Burning Room
16.Why Georgia
17.The Heart Of Life
18.I Don't Need No Doctor
19.Gravity
20.I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)
21.Belief
22.I'm Gonna Find Another You