John Mayer
At Air Canada Centre
In Toronto, on Sunday
The loud snipping sound you heard Sunday night was an arena full of people cutting John Mayer some slack. The embattled singer-songwriter is having it rough, thanks to the hornet's nest of controversy whipped up by the pop star's hot week in the press.
"Toronto, would you be my valentine?" he asked his estrogen-heavy fan base. "I got dressed up and everything just for the occasion," continued the boyish man in a plaid jacket. "I'd like to take you out tonight."
Pulling his sneakers from his mouth, John Mayer gave an extremely well-accepted concert of bluesy six-stringing and rose-scented pop music on love day. Fallout from his notorious comments (followed by a sniffling on-stage apology in Nashville) did not follow Mayer here.
Soul-kissed applause greeted his opening number, Heartbreak Warfare, the pulsating title track from his latest album. After the heart-shaped invitation to the crowd, came a funky-slick version of the blues standard Crossroads. Not since Mississippi's Robert Johnson stirred up the fish-fry crowd in 1937 has that song elicited such squeals.
This week it would have been hard to miss the quotes excitedly pulled from Mayer's rambles in Playboy and Rolling Stone. The filter-free pretty boy told readers these things: That he is a keen masturbator, that he's a little too loose with the N-word, that Jessica Simpson was "sexual napalm," that he has yet to get over former paramour Jennifer Aniston, and that he considers his penis to be a white supremacist.
In short, Mayer revealed that he is too clever by half.
Onstage, backed by two singers and an ace, slinky, five-piece band that included drummer Steve Jordan and former Pretenders and Paul McCartney guitarist Robbie McIntosh, the eligible bachelor was in his element. "First impression?" he mused early, about this date, "I think I'm in love."
The feelings appeared mutual. When on his best behaviour, what's not to love? The 32-year-old Connecticut native has the affable charm of actor Vince Vaughn, an impassioned ability on the Stratocaster and a songwriter's ear for sweet melodies.
Like a serial killer who willingly gives away clues, Mayer flaunts his influences. After covering the Tom Petty singalong Free Fallin', we heard Say, which borrows from Petty's tune. Into Half of My Heart, which has the breezy California bounce of Fleetwood Mac, Mayer inserted the chorus of that band's Dreams.
Thunder only happens when it's raining - and Mayer, he's in the middle of a deluge. Stripped down to a white cotton muscle shirt, after the soulful, softly lit finale Gravity, he threw caution to the wind and carnations to the crowd. He waved bye-bye, and off he went. Any port in the storm will do.
John Mayer plays Ottawa Feb. 16 and Montreal Feb. 17