John Mayer Covers....Everyone.

One year ago, John Mayer recorded a concert live from the Nokia Theatre in L.A. This concert was special, however, because it combined the three aspects of his music, an acoustic set, a set with the John Mayer Trio, and a full band set. This is where he first debuted his now popular cover of Tom Petty's hit "Free Falling." Last night, John Mayer revisited the Nokia Theatre, but this time by himself. While I was not at the show, it is available to be streamed off of Mayer's website. When looking over the setlist, there are several songs that are not Mayer originals. In fact almost half of the songs he played were half his own and half a cover. 

He started the night off with Prince's "Little Red Corvette" into his song "Stop this Train." Next he played his song "Belief" into Marvin Gaye's song, "Inner City Blues (Make Me Want to Holler)", which he has covered before on a previous live cd. The third song of the night was a rare Mayer original, "Hummingbird", not to be confused with the song Mayer sang with B.B. King on his 80 record with the same name. 

Next was his creative transition from his old song "Comfortable" into "Free Falling". Then Mayer played "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", made famous by Marvin Gaye, to the beat of his  friend Kanye West's most recent hit, "Love Lockdown" into into his song "Vultures". The covers stopped for a while towards the middle of the set, Mayer played some more rare, old acoustic tunes, "In Your Atmosphere" and "Sucker" as well as hits "Waiting on the World to Change" and "Your Body is a Wonderland". 

The covers resume towards the end of the set and into the encore, with Radiohead's "Karma Police" in a medley of old Mayer tunes, then another common Mayer cover, Cream's "Crossroads" into the John Mayer Trio's hit "Who Did You Think I Was". Next was "Gravity" into "I've Got Dreams to Remember", an Otis Redding song that Mayer recorded with Buddy Guy a few years ago. The last song of the night was Coldplay + Jay-Z cover of "Lost+" into radio hit "Clarity".

WHAT A SHOW. Only thing that was slightly disappointing was the lack of new material. I haven't heard a new Mayer original in probably over a year. He seems to be really into covers lately, he even played a Frank Sinatra song on David Letterman on Thanksgiving.