This guy can play, and this guy can sing, and this Blu-ray captures it all.
I actually found the behind-the-scenes footage more interesting. These guys were awfully low-key as they went through the corridors and stairwells to get to or leave the stage-kind of like lunch-box carrying blue-collar types. There was very little conversation, and one supposes Mayer likes it that way. He's pretty low-key onstage, too, wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans for the first and third sets, and decking out in Beatles-era white shirts and ties and jackets with his trio.
Here's the song list:
Neon (acoustic)
Stop This Train (acoustic)
In Your Atmosphere (cheesy acoustic)
Daughters (more cheesy acoustic, with a singing audience backup)
Free Fallin' (sensitive soulful acoustic)
Everyday I Have the Blues (trio)
Wait Until Tomorrow (trio)
Who Did You Think I Was (trio)
Come When I Call (trio, with Mayer doing his B.B. King impersonation)
Good Love is on the Way (trio, edging into the world of Grand Funk)
Out of My Mind (trio)
Vultures (trio)
Bold as Love (trio)
Waiting on the World to Change (full band, return to light pop-rock)
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room (full band, with sighing female audience)
Why Georgia (full band, with women wondering, Why Jessica?)
The Heart of Life (full band, with cheese)
I Don't Need No Doctor (full band)
Gravity (full band)
I Don't Trust Myself (full band, and me neither)
Belief (full band; does anyone have a Bic lighter?)
I'm Gonna Find Another You (full band, his walk-off closer. Encore? Nope. Adulation? He knows it's there, and doesn't need to fish for it.)
The encore is really Mayer sitting on a Mulholland Drive hilltop playing his guitar, plugged into a speaker. It's the way the film opened, with him playing in daylight, and it closes with Mayer playing at twilight. Clever concept, and it probably works better than an encore.
This concert will be a must-have for fans, and it looks so good in Blu-ray that it might even prompt a few to go out and buy a player, finally. Non-Mayer fans also will warm to this concert, because the cheesy songs are palatable if you focus on this guy's amazing guitar work and vocals. He's a musical force, able to shift gears effortlessly.
Video:
I don't have to tell anyone how tricky concert lighting is, and how often we get errant lasers streaking across the screen or halos because of the stage lighting. But the video for "Where the Light Is" is really clean and precise-looking. Given the darkened stage for most of the evening, I can't imagine that the DVD would come close to capturing the detail in shadows that this 1080p print offers (VC-1 codec, BD50). Colors are vivid too, despite the harsh spots, and there's only the slightest bit of grain in some of the candid sequences. Shot in Super 35mm and presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the concert stuff is pretty flawless in terms of cinematography and video quality.
Audio:
There are two audio options: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and PCM 2.0, both in English and both 96kHz/24 bit. It's a coin toss, as far as I'm concerned, but I preferred Mayer's voice on the PCM because it sounded a little fuller. There were a few weird moments on the PCM track, though, as when Mayer sideman David Ryan Harris is shown on-camera playing his guitar solo and we get the sound coming out of the left main speaker. There are a few more disjointed moments like that because of the channeling. The 5.1 TrueHD channeled the instruments more naturally, but Mayer's voice was slightly . . . "muffled" is too strong of a word, but I might call it "restrained." I preferred the PCM, and those head-snapping moments of strange channeling were too few to really bother me.
Extras:
Okay, call me a curmudgeon, but when I watch a concert DVD/BD I want a booklet that has lyrics and credits. Instead, we get a six-page booklet that's all photos, with the front inside cover a repeat of the song line-up from the back cover, and the back inside cover all of the credits . . . in like 4 point type. This booklet is all style, and no substance. That's kind of what the other features are like, too. Sony has really embraced the BD-Live concept, but they (and everyone else) are still trying to figure out what to do with it. Well, I'm no expert, but with an Internet connection I'd guess that fans would want access to Mayer's appearance schedule, and (ideally) a Q&A where they might get lucky and have their question answered by Mayer himself. Or maybe there'd be concert footage from a different gig, or a really cool practice session, or footage of Mayer on vacation or something. Instead, the only BD-Live feature is a "Belief" backstage performance that requires 57MB of memory to download (and a Profile 2.0 player to deliver). The only other bonus feature, aside from a "Slow Dancing on Mulholland Drive" extended clip of Mayer playing and talking, requires a Profile 1.1 player, as it involves a "bonusview" picture-in-picture experience with a camera cam attached to Jordan and Palladino.
Bottom Line:
I don't have to tell John Mayer fans that this is a great concert, but I can add that it's a great overall Blu-ray presentation. This guy can play, and this guy can sing, and this Blu-ray captures it all.
Here's the song list:
Neon (acoustic)
Stop This Train (acoustic)
In Your Atmosphere (cheesy acoustic)
Daughters (more cheesy acoustic, with a singing audience backup)
Free Fallin' (sensitive soulful acoustic)
Everyday I Have the Blues (trio)
Wait Until Tomorrow (trio)
Who Did You Think I Was (trio)
Come When I Call (trio, with Mayer doing his B.B. King impersonation)
Good Love is on the Way (trio, edging into the world of Grand Funk)
Out of My Mind (trio)
Vultures (trio)
Bold as Love (trio)
Waiting on the World to Change (full band, return to light pop-rock)
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room (full band, with sighing female audience)
Why Georgia (full band, with women wondering, Why Jessica?)
The Heart of Life (full band, with cheese)
I Don't Need No Doctor (full band)
Gravity (full band)
I Don't Trust Myself (full band, and me neither)
Belief (full band; does anyone have a Bic lighter?)
I'm Gonna Find Another You (full band, his walk-off closer. Encore? Nope. Adulation? He knows it's there, and doesn't need to fish for it.)
The encore is really Mayer sitting on a Mulholland Drive hilltop playing his guitar, plugged into a speaker. It's the way the film opened, with him playing in daylight, and it closes with Mayer playing at twilight. Clever concept, and it probably works better than an encore.
This concert will be a must-have for fans, and it looks so good in Blu-ray that it might even prompt a few to go out and buy a player, finally. Non-Mayer fans also will warm to this concert, because the cheesy songs are palatable if you focus on this guy's amazing guitar work and vocals. He's a musical force, able to shift gears effortlessly.
Video:
I don't have to tell anyone how tricky concert lighting is, and how often we get errant lasers streaking across the screen or halos because of the stage lighting. But the video for "Where the Light Is" is really clean and precise-looking. Given the darkened stage for most of the evening, I can't imagine that the DVD would come close to capturing the detail in shadows that this 1080p print offers (VC-1 codec, BD50). Colors are vivid too, despite the harsh spots, and there's only the slightest bit of grain in some of the candid sequences. Shot in Super 35mm and presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the concert stuff is pretty flawless in terms of cinematography and video quality.
Audio:
There are two audio options: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and PCM 2.0, both in English and both 96kHz/24 bit. It's a coin toss, as far as I'm concerned, but I preferred Mayer's voice on the PCM because it sounded a little fuller. There were a few weird moments on the PCM track, though, as when Mayer sideman David Ryan Harris is shown on-camera playing his guitar solo and we get the sound coming out of the left main speaker. There are a few more disjointed moments like that because of the channeling. The 5.1 TrueHD channeled the instruments more naturally, but Mayer's voice was slightly . . . "muffled" is too strong of a word, but I might call it "restrained." I preferred the PCM, and those head-snapping moments of strange channeling were too few to really bother me.
Extras:
Okay, call me a curmudgeon, but when I watch a concert DVD/BD I want a booklet that has lyrics and credits. Instead, we get a six-page booklet that's all photos, with the front inside cover a repeat of the song line-up from the back cover, and the back inside cover all of the credits . . . in like 4 point type. This booklet is all style, and no substance. That's kind of what the other features are like, too. Sony has really embraced the BD-Live concept, but they (and everyone else) are still trying to figure out what to do with it. Well, I'm no expert, but with an Internet connection I'd guess that fans would want access to Mayer's appearance schedule, and (ideally) a Q&A where they might get lucky and have their question answered by Mayer himself. Or maybe there'd be concert footage from a different gig, or a really cool practice session, or footage of Mayer on vacation or something. Instead, the only BD-Live feature is a "Belief" backstage performance that requires 57MB of memory to download (and a Profile 2.0 player to deliver). The only other bonus feature, aside from a "Slow Dancing on Mulholland Drive" extended clip of Mayer playing and talking, requires a Profile 1.1 player, as it involves a "bonusview" picture-in-picture experience with a camera cam attached to Jordan and Palladino.
Bottom Line:
I don't have to tell John Mayer fans that this is a great concert, but I can add that it's a great overall Blu-ray presentation. This guy can play, and this guy can sing, and this Blu-ray captures it all.
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[release]24255[/release]