John Mayer Actually Does Something Good

So last year, some friends and I went up to San Francisco to go camping and attend Neil Young's Bridge Benefit concert for autism. The concert featured Tegan and Sara, Metallica, minuscule sets by Tom Waits and Neil Young, an amazing set by My Morning Jacket, and one of the most offensive sets I've ever seen by John Mayer.

Here's what happened: John goes through his set, eschewing his shitty radio hits (for the most part) in favor of solid bluesy songs with impressive compositions and some stellar guitar play. Nearing the end of his set, we all felt a little different about John. Perhaps we shouldn't rag on him so much. Perhaps his puke inducing songs "Waiting on the World to Change Because I'm Too Lazy to Actually Do Anything Pro-Active" and "Your Body is an Overpriced Amusement Park That Leaves Me Tired, Angry, and Disappointed" don't actually encompass all that is John Mayer. Then, for his finally, he took us out with Tom Petty's "Free Falling." You can feel the energy in the crowd of a few thousand people, all waiting with bated breath to scream the chorus. "Here it comes...here it comes...oh, oh," and we yell "AND I'M..." And you know what John Mayer does? He decides, "Fuck the anthem. I'm gonna shit all over the chorus. You know, really take it down about 50 notches. Make it smooth. Calm." Can you imagine? He gave an audience of over three thousand people the worst fucking case of blue balls. Every time he got to the chorus, we wanted to SCREAM, while he changed the chords and took it down to a whisper, that son of a bitch. After he left the stage, the crowd started singing Free Falling the way it's supposed to be sung - with anthemic, cathartic, Jerry Maguire-like yelling. I've hated John Mayer twice as much as I ever did since that night.

Which brings me to this. After watching this, I kind of don't hate him anymore. In fact, I kind of wouldn't mind hanging out with him. I still don't want to listen to his music, but this is actually very very funny. There's always a place in my heart for self-deprecation.