John Mayer feat. Newton Faulkner @ Royal Albert Hall, 17 September

There’s something about guitarists, especially when playing electric guitars. It’s arrogance, but they may or may not be conscious of this. For me, it’s probably got to do with the positioning of the electric guitar and the way the hands move. I don’t know. Of course, it’s also your typical rockstar-pose. For this reason I have issues with men playing electric guitars. This did not, however, stop me from going to see John Mayer at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday.

Before I sing Mr. Mayer some praises, his support act Newton Faulkner deserves some words first. I first heard Newton a couple of years ago, on BBC Radio 1 I think it was, doing an amazing cover of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’. I read he had an album now, but hadn’t got round to checking it out. I most certainly will after yesterday’s performance. He reminded me of Jason Mraz, but folkier and more raw. I was amazed he managed to fill a packed Royal Albert Hall with his stage presence and his acoustic, albeit amped-up, guitar. His songs are on the mellow side, but I like that and he has enough charisma to pull it off. His live version of ‘Teardrop’ was probably worth the price of the ticket. And kudos to him for singing the Spongebob Squarepants song in an esteemed venue like the RAH and have thousands of people sing along… Nice!

On to John Mayer. I’ve been wanting to see this guy live for yonks. Problem is, he doesn’t tend to tour Europe a lot and that’s quite possibly the understatement of the year. I missed out last year when he did a gig in Amsterdam as the tickets sold out in about 5 seconds. So, when I saw he did a date at the Royal Albert Hall I bought the ticket. I’m suffering from a mild case of gig-overload at the moment, so up until I actually arrived at the beautiful auditorium that is the RAH, I wasn’t particularly psyched about this, as the Americans say. But that soon changed. John Mayer is one helluva performer. Musically, this was one of the tightest gigs I have ever seen. Touring with a fantastic band, John treated the audience to a nice mix of old and new tracks, including a deliciously bluesy cover of Ray Charles’ ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’. John’s voice is lovely, very versatile, but it was his guitar-playing that made my jaw drop. I’m usually more of a piano kinda gal, as the howling of electric guitars doesn’t tend to float my boat, but boy this was pretty damn good. The skill and musical intelligence was quite astounding. He’s not a performer who interacts with his audience a lot, he tells some tales, but he’s very focused on the music. You can tell his band have been playing a long time with him, there were some beautiful things going on there. The solos were fantastic, his sax-player in particular put out some amazing stuff, and just the band playing together was tight. And tight is a good thing at times, especially in a set-up like this.

It had been a while since I’d seen such a massive gig. The RAH is such a fantastic venue. I had never seen a concert in there, I only saw the auditorium empty when I had a job interview there three years ago. The sound was incredible. Even with a lot of amps, you could tell this hall was made for music. I was sat in front of the stage, at the other end of the hall in the stalls and the sound was crisp and well-balanced. The audience loved it and the atmosphere was great.

Here’s hoping he’ll keep his promise of coming back soon.