It’s not truly summer until John Mayer has played the Meadows. Or as it is now called, Xfinity Theater. Our series of “Sundays with Mayer” continues although I made the trip to Hartford solo this time as I decided to splurge on one of the “Good Love Is On The Way” packages that was WAY too much money but scored me a 2nd row CENTER seat, a meet and greet with John and a cool swag bag – and an awesome guitar pick shaped VIP “backstage” pass. (By far my coolest pass and I’m debating getting it framed with my photo or sticking it in the scrapbook like all my other passes…)
Check In was 4:45, we were taken inside early at about 5:15 and allowed to do some crowd-free merchandise shopping. I ended up snagging the event-specific shirt (as I always do) and one of the Emoji of a Wave t-shirts – there were 4 different styles so it took me forever to pick out which one I wanted. At 5:30 the gates opened and we were escorted to the backstage door – thinking this was it and we were all going to be meeting John… only to be told nope – come back to this door at 6:47pm. As if we weren’t nervous enough – we had to wait a whole extra hour+.
Finally it was time to go backstage and most of the reviews of the M&G I read said you get a “couple minutes” with him – but my experience seemed more like a couple seconds. I went in, turned the corner and there he was (and he is SO tall and very intimidating) He asked my name, we took the pic, I asked him about a song being in the set and I was on my merry way… doing my usual “Did I smile? Did I look at the camera? What was he even wearing?” as I walked away. Honestly I would have told you he was wearing a brown long sleeved t-shirt if you had asked me right after – despite the fact that I know I looked at his tattoos. It was a black short sleeve shirt once I saw the photos!!
Some of the M&Gers may have missed part of the opener – DAWES, but I was the 3rd one through the M&G line so I was able to get to my seat before they started and I was glad that I did as they had a really fun set and I really enjoyed them. Also, funny story, I walked out of backstage and ended up walking next to 2 or 3 guys and a girl ran up to them and was like “OH MY GOD DID YOU JUST MEET JOHN MAYER” and I didn’t say anything, but the guys were like “YEAH!” (they didn’t) and she started being all “OMG! What was he like!?” and then they finally fessed up and said “No, we didn’t… I think she did though…” as I skirted away from them all and headed to my seat!
At about 8:45 John took the stage!!!!! I knew my seat was close but I don’t think it really sunk in HOW close until he took the stage – and now I’m so, so, so spoiled that I don’t know if I can sit further away ever again. (But I also don’t think I can afford the super giant package every tour, either!) During Helpless he ended up playing some of the guitar riffs (is that the word?) for Rolling Stones “Miss You” which was pretty cool. During Who Says he threw in Hartford and some other CT cities as well which is always fun when you see him in CT although I have to say his school closing joke is getting O-L-D… (maybe I find it more exciting when he mentions my city, which he did not this time) Despite him not adding Love Song For No One to the setlist for me – he did play a couple of my other favorites – Vultures and Gravity. And he sang like half of Daughters right to me, I’m pretty sure.
The two guys in front of me were jamming their asses off the whole show – and I could tell that John was really getting a kick out of them and he even gave them out shout out as well.
This show combined with Boston in April I think gave a good representation of the new album (which wasn’t out yet then) though I was hoping for a few more “oldies” thrown in there.
