Music review: John Mayer should be taking his talent to more challenging places Monday, June 04, 2007
LUCIANA LOPEZ

Let us dispense with the obvious: John Mayer is a superlative guitarist, whose strong blues influence and easy control of the instrument make for a pop sound that goes far beyond the teeny-bopper offerings of, say, Jessica Simpson, Mayer's on-again, off-again girlfriend, to whom he made only oblique reference Friday night at the Clark County Amphitheater.

His voice is warm enough and conveys the sincerity of his tightly written songs, but it's on his guitar that his superior musicianship comes through the most.

Yet for all the undeniable skill he displayed Friday night, he also revealed what he lacks: a sense of vision, of direction toward a new frontier to challenge both himself and his listeners.

Since his 1999 debut, Mayer has steadily impressed fans with his development of an organic, mature blues sound that owes a direct debt to the likes of Eric Clapton (a debt Mayer acknowledged in the liner notes to 2006's "Continuum," the Grammy winner for best pop vocal album). He's played beside some of the best in the blues, with B.B. King among others, and not only has not embarrassed himself but also seems to have learned in the process.

In concert Friday his sound was as polished as his studio work without being stiff or constrained. He held the stage without seeming to, a presence whose power came naturally rather than through forced contrivance.

Mayer made it clear that he knows where the blues come from, that he understands its foundations and the contemporary form of it that Clapton, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan made into pop hits. These guitarists are legends, but legends are by definition old-guard. Mayer should be the vanguard, but he has yet to plot a course toward an undiscovered country.

While Mayer was almost relentlessly earnest, opener Ben Folds bordered on the flip. A singer and pianist whose best known song, about abortion, is "Brick," Folds exposed his true colors with the highlight of his set: a cover of a Dr. Dre song in which the first and last words of the three-word title are unquotable in a family newspaper (the middle word, for the curious, is "ain't"), laid against a tongue-way-in-cheek sensitive piano (backed by his bandmates on drums and bass). Think Alanis Morissette's send-up of "My Humps," but with more potty mouth.

Folds was manic onstage, like a little kid banging alone on a grand piano, and might have balanced his set better if he'd added some of his more serious songs. One apparently unplanned addition to the set list was an impromptu song thanking John Mayer for bringing in fans who don't feel the compulsion to eat corn dogs during the opening act. It was odd and a little sweet, and Mayer himself returned the favor during his set, singing his own thanks to Folds and playing a few bars of Folds' song "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces." The song is not, to put it mildly, a heart-rending opus about the human condition. It was not only one of the lighter moments of Mayer's set, but it was also a classy gesture.

At one point in the night Mayer compared growing older to leaving a harbor -- there's a long stretch between shores when there's nothing around but ocean. Mayer's destination, for now, is uncertain; it could be someplace we've already seen. But it could be a place worth a wait, however long that might be.

Luciana Lopez; 503-412-7034; lucianalopez@news.oregonian.com

Originally found here.