John Mayer Blew my Mind. Again.

John Mayer
Pepsi Center, Denver CO
3/23/2010

If you've been living under a music-less, joyless rock and didn't know, John came out with a new album called Battle Studies.  For me, it's the best album of his career.  (I can't really include the Trio in that statement, because for me the Trio was a totally different animal than Solo John.)  So.  John has been on tour for a month now, and after my short time bliss-listening to Battle Studies, it was show time.

I went to the Milwaukee show in early March, and it was fantastic.  I posted the photos from that show here.  Now, let me tell you, although I'm a photographer, sometimes it really is better to not bring a camera to a show.  As John said in his song 3x5, "Today I finally overcame trying to fit the world inside a picture frame."  Going to a show and not worrying about what song I might capture on video, or if the picture I take with my iPhone will be good enough to look at later, or what f-stop I need to use for this particular lighting setup... it's amazing.  The show goes from something I'm documenting, to something that I am experiencing.

And let me tell you, tonight, it was an experience.  John opened with "Heartbreak Warfare", and the feel of the Denver crowd was out of this world.  The arena was full of fans who had driven through a blizzard to get to the show, and everyone was hyped.  The energy was almost a palpable buzz. 

"Crossroads" and "Vultures" satiated our bluesy rock cravings, and then he launched into "No Such Thing", which made my brother look at me with amazement and ask, "What year is this again?  This is awesome!"  Though it's apparent through his entire show, hearing the older tunes really highlights the vocal strides he has made over the course of his career.  If we were to go back and recruit 2001 John Mayer for a show, he wouldn't be able to sing through a set-list from 2010.  Or, he could, but it wouldn't even begin to come close.

Then John entertained us all with his best written self-proclaimed, three-minute lie, "Perfectly Lonely," which also happens to have one of the most perfectly constructed bridges in any song he's written.  Seriously.  Go listen to it again, I'll wait.  See?  Told ya.

"Perfectly Lonely" segued into "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" which was effectively a musical tranquilizer for me.  Such a great song, and it pretty much crept into my bloodstream and had me swaying with no real concept of time until it ended.  I couldn't tell you how long the song lasted, but if someone told me it was twenty minutes, I wouldn't doubt them.

Then, the best part of the show:  "Assasin".  John singing this song with the guitar slung over his back, spotlight dramatically on him... it blows me away every time.  Blows my mind.  Blows it open and through, over and back, and then I open my eyes, look at him, and it starts over.  There's something about it that is sort of dramatic and a little magical.  The story of the song is delectable, (I still maintain that it's the best song on the album) and the performance is second to none.  Standing on the floor was also pretty badass during this song.  I pressed my hand to my chest during the line, "Good to know it's all a game, disappointment has a name," and I could feel the pounding of the music vibrating through my body.  It was a profoundly special moment for me.

Have I mentioned the light show?  It's phenomenal.  Or as my Dad said tonight, "Top notch."

Moving on.  John then broke into the acoustic section of the show, and surprised the ever loving hell out of us by playing "Comfortable".  God, that one is an oldie but a goodie.  And it was a goodie, indeed.  I've never heard it performed live at a show before, so I felt it was extremely special.  It was special enough, in fact, to merit my brother and I performing our super awesome secret handshake in celebration of the pure awesomeness.

Then, John played "Free Falling", which was his vocal crowning achievement of the night.  Damn.  Will someone tell me when exactly it was that John Mayer grew a voice like that?  Because I don't really remember when it happened.  I'm just really happy that it did.

After that, it was "Waiting on the World to Change," "Half of my Heart," "Bigger than my Body" and "Why Georgia".  Mixed in there was a kick-ass drum solo by Steve Jordan, John leading the entire arena in singing "Happy Birthday" to one of his backup singers, and a swoon-worthy song intro by David Ryan Harris.  (The man has pipes, pitch, skills.)

Tonight John told us, "If you keep coming, I'll keep playing.  I promise."  Well, just as with his Grammy acceptance speech telling us that he promised to catch up... I do believe he'll make good on that promise.

Because of the snow, I regrettably had to leave before the encore.  I'm quite glad to hear that it was "Gravity" and "Who Says"... though I love those two songs... it would have been a far greater tragedy if he broke out a new song, or played some wild awesome unexpected thing.

If it's not clear... if you get the opportunity to see John Mayer live, you should go.  Push aside his social media addictions and the interviews and all the other crap.  'Cause when you strip away his Stupid Mouth, the guy is still an incredible musician.  Seriously.  His music has changed my life, and I'm telling you, it just might change yours too.

~Jenn

PS... I shot a wedding Saturday, and it kicked ass!  Click here for those photos. :)

My love, my love.

Indeed.  Went to see Johnny at the Bradley Center last night, and the show was amazing!

Click here to see all my favorites from the show!  Oh yeah, Spearhead opened, and they were awesome!

~J

Day 10 and Resolutions.

Okay. Day 10: Shredded. I am officially 1/3 of the way through the 30 Day Shred! ::insert cheer track here.::

It was kind of a miracle because I seriously, seriously did not, NOT. want. to. do. it. It's about two degrees outside, everything is frozen and all I wanted to do was sink myself deep into a burrow of blankets and forget about doing anything. But, I did it. Why? 'Cause I told you people that I was doing it. And as I worked out, I thought to myself, "See Jenn? You CAN commit to do SOMETHING physical for more than a week." And I really just need to continue doing it. I think like Sue, I'm gonna bookmark Jack Sh*t's 55% blog post to keep myself motivated.


OH! The Exposed movement has seriously taken flight, and I was super excited to see this today. Pass it along. Participate. Do it, dammit. :)


Another thing I was thinking about was New Years Resolutions. Sue mentioned in her vlog today that soon the interwebs and the gyms will be hellacrowded with all those folks who wait until New Years to decide they want to get healthy and stuff. It's true. And I've never been a New Years resolution type of person. The first time I lost a bunch of weight with the Atkins diet, I decided to start in November, two weeks before Thanksgiving and plates of stuffing and bowls of mashed potatoes. I ate salad and turkey. I just figure that when you're ready to make a change, you decide THEN.

New Years isn't a magic day that makes it easier. It's a new year, yes, but you won't truly do something and be totally committed to it unless SOMETHING inside of you makes the decision, regardless of the day or the time of year or when your friend says, "let's be diet buddies!" If you make the decision because of one of those reasons, you'll end up feeling like a failure when your friend calls to see how your weight loss is going and you say you ate the entire contents of your fridge.

All I'm saying is that you don't need to wait. Take a few minutes and look inside yourself. Sit in the quiet and really think about what you want from this whole weight loss thing. What are your goals? What is it about where you are now that makes you unhappy? Dig deep and don't run away from your feelings about it. Confront them head-on and then, hold on to them. Remind yourself that you can change it, and then decide to.

A lot of you guys have asked me what my motivation is or how I've done it, etc. I totally don't have the answer to consistency. I look to other people who have achieved far better results in way less time for inspiration. All I can do is share what's worked for me. It could be different for you, and that's cool too. I just wish we could all live on the same block and run around in circles on the sidewalk together. I would totally do calisthenics with you people.

So, I'd like to share with you all my list of Non-New-Years-Resolutions.

1. Continue to shred through the 30 days.
2. After the shred, go to the damn gym for which I'm paying, and run on the damn treadmill and use the damn captains chair.
3. Work out during my near month long vacation in Denver, and NOT use it as an excuse to sit on my ass.
4. Fit into my size 8 jeans before we go to Vegas in February.


Those are my personal goals. Do you have some goals right now? I wanna see what they are. :)


And since I have no fun photos to share with you guys, and all blog entries here should really have a photo to keep it interesting, I'm sharing one of my favorite recent images, one taken by the lucky ass photographer for Details Magazine, Alexei Hay, who I am eternally jealous of, 'cause I can't figure out why the fuck I can't get John in MY studio instead of him being in Alexei's.

So I present to you, John Mayer, my eternal, never moving boy toy, makes me wanna die, partner in crime, the media whore, guitar god, YES I love the tattoos, John, the inspiration, lust and love of my life.



~Jenn

Oh, Crap. In my DREAMS!

So, I just checked out my horoscope for today (actually, for tomorrow, August 3rd, but it's 1:03 AM, so technically it's today, okay?) and this is what it said:

You are incredibly enthusiastic about something new in your life -- maybe a new love, maybe a new fitness regimen. Whatever it is, try to keep your conversations balanced so you don't bore your friends!

So... apparently I need to tone things down a bit. I'm sorry if I've been talking too much about any particular subject. I think every time I talk to my friends we discuss my weight loss, and I am realizing now that it must be incredibly annoying for them. Come on, Jenn... they know your weight loss schniblets are on your blog, so just let them read the blog if they're dying to know your exact weight or caloric intake. Or at least wait until they ask, "So, how's the fat doing?"

I apologize.

So, I'll just shut it from now on and talk about bugs instead. Or bowling, that's a good one. Or maybe we can go back to talking about John Mayer. I always like talking about him. Except for the fact that recently I've been having dreams about him. And it's not like the good old days where I'd have sexy dreams about him and wake up feeling all happy and guilty at the same time. Lately it's been like this:

Scene: Me somewhere. John Mayer is there. John Mayer is making fun of me behind my back. I don't know precisely what he says, but the way I feel makes me think it's something along the lines of, "Yeah. I mean, does she actually think we WANT her here? She should just go home. She bugs my ass, and I hate her face," or something. And then he laughs. He either doesn't realize I can hear him or knows I can hear him but doesn't give a crap. I then feel like total crap.


So, it's not like he's saying to his (faceless, non identifiable) friend, "See, when she's near me, my soul takes flight, and I feel SO in love that my heart gets this big!"





He's saying the aforementioned craptastic things about me, and this look is on his face:




That's a pretty ucky dream to have. Especially for me. It kind of makes me want to squirt out a little tear of pathetic celebrity loving sadness. And it's sort of psychotic, but (please tell me if you do this too) I wake up from these dreams actually feeling kind of pissed off at him.

As in, I think to myself, "Yeah, that John Mayer IS kind of an asshole."


You know, I used to keep a dream journal. I would wake up in the morning, reach over and grab my dream journal and a pen, and record my dreams in as much detail as I could. Now when I read those dreams, I REMEMBER them like they are MEMORIES. That kind of freaks me out.

Maybe I should share some of them with you guys sometime. You can help me decode them. I've really wanted to start writing down my dreams again. I can't think of any reason why I shouldn't start. Do any of you write your dreams down? I think there are a lot of subconscious things that are revealed in our dreams. Sometimes it might just be how weird and strange we all are... but sometimes it might actually help us figure out a thing or two about ourselves.


~J

It's Heartbreak Warfare.

Mayer Wednesday. Wait, WHAT? Yeah, It's my blog and I do what I wanna.

Naw, in all reality, guys... I saw this video - Mr. Mayer posted it something like 8 minutes ago, and I have to confess, I'm a psycho internet addicted, blog feeding frenzy freak.

I'm sharing it. He's doing a series of videos about the writing and production process of his new album, which is being completely written and done in this house he bought. Seeing John at the piano almost made me pee a little.

This is a little quote of what John says at the end of the video over some audio of one of his new songs (Heartbreak Warfare):

"This is who I am. This is the next step in the story of who I am. There's nothing better than that in the whole world, and I have to make myself go to sleep so I can do it again tomorrow."

So... do you feel that way about what you do every day? I do. And if you don't... I really hope you find that kind of happiness in your life soon. 'Cause there truly isn't anything better than that.

...Well, except maybe mint chocolate chip ice cream.



Please enjoy.

Mayer Monday.

This one's for Monica. It makes me get teary eyed every time. Plus, look at his big juicy lips. Yum. ;)



~J

John Mayer on Photography

I don't know how I missed this. The interview probably happened before I was a "real" photographer. John did a summer of Nikon photography for their website, and this was a really, really cool interview they did with him. This literally mixed my two favorite things in the entire world... Nikon gear / photography and John Mayer. Gah!

And yeah, I know he's holding a Canon in the photo above, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

Three of his favorite photographers:

Danny Clinch
Annie Leibowitz
Jim Marshall
*He also mentions Katie Friesema (Tour photographer... I'm so jealous of her.)

And soon to be added... Jennifer Brindley. ;)

http://press.nikonusa.com/podcasts/Nikon_John_Mayer_Podcast_3.mp3


~J

Mayer Monday.

Today I'd like to welcome my guest blogger, John Mayer!

Yeah. This is actually one of the columns he wrote for Esquire a long time ago, but it inspires me, and I hope it inspires you. Get ready for a new variety of Mayer Monday.



This is Your Life, The Mix Tape.

A few weeks ago I was lying in bed in my hotel room, falling asleep to my XM satellite radio, when I decided to spend some time on the '40s station. I was looking for the oldest music I could find. I'm obsessed with time lately, constantly crunching the numbers to get some sense of where I stand in the continuum. I instantly thought of my dad, who would be able to call out the artist and title of every song that played as if they were hits today. And then I wondered, where in his life was he when he first heard Art Mooney's "Bluebird of Happiness"?

So I sent him an e-mail. "I would love to hold a mix CD of the songs you remember most from your youth," I wrote. "Would you think about it and tell me some names and titles? How cool would that be for me to fall asleep to a record of all the tunes you loved growing up?" The more I thought about it, the more I needed to have it. Your life's soundtrack is your fingerprint, tracing all the individual way points, taking into account all the curveballs, surprises, and heartbreaks.

Dad wrote me back the next morning. "The first song that I can remember hearing is 'The Music Goes 'Round and Around,' by Tommy Dorsey. ('I blow through here / the music goes round and round / whoa-ho-ho-ho/and it comes out here.') The first piece of sheet music I ever bought was 'Serenade in the Night.' My first record was 'Tales from the Vienna Woods.' I bought it secondhand, and it had a crack in it. When I hear the song played now, I still unconsciously expect it to repeat over and over at the point of the crack."

So I went to iTunes and downloaded all three. I won't tell you what they sound like, because it won't mean anything to you. You have to know my dad. But I can tell you this: All the megapixels in the universe won't capture what asking your parents for a list of the music that moves them can. I'm nine minutes into "Tales from the Vienna Woods" and I can smell the house my father was born in. And with more of his memories to come, I can't stop crunching the numbers.





And here's a fun vid for any Lady Ga Ga fans or Ellen fans out there. (Travis Wilson, I'm talkin' to you.)

Enjoy,






~J

Espose. Hu-larious.

If I could wake up to a video like this every morning, I think I'd always be in a good mood.



There's a fine line between clever and stupid. I don't know which this is, but it's funny as hell.

~J

Update

Well, I have sort of been putting off any "real" update.

I am 2 lbs up after 10 days of vacation. That's not TOO bad. I did a lot of walking in San Diego, and virtually NO exercise on the cruise. I danced a lot, but truly I didn't do anything.

I also have NOT exercised since coming home. I feel totally out of it.

Dan's grandmother died while I was gone, so we're going to a funeral tomorrow - it'll be a 9 hour ordeal because it's a traditional Catholic funeral and it's 2 hours away. Then tomorrow night is his Sister's birthday celebration. I'm anticipating starting up my routine of working out on Sunday or Monday. Zumba will commence Tuesday morning, and healthy eating has started already. I pretty much have maintained a decent level of healthy eating throughout but I have not been tracking calories since the cruise started.

Man... vacation just throws everything off balance. No me gusta!

On another note, I love John Mayer. Have I mentioned that?

I mean come on. This is the epitome of perfection:




Gah. Maybe I should be calling this "Fuckable Friday."




<3 Jenn

Tattoo Prototype

As a starting off point.




Thoughts?


Oh yeah, this is going on my forearm, as in this style:

In color:



Except mine will be tall boxes instead of oblong boxes.

I'm not sure if I want to do the text in the middle box - I might do it as a tattoo on its own. That's a tattoo I've wanted for about six years. It's in Irish Gaelic and it means "The Beauty and the Mess." It's a song Nickel Creek does, and the Irish Gaelic is an homage to part of my heritage.

The idea for this tattoo was to have the music that has most affected my life on my body. The music uplifts, inspires and fills me with joy, and has gotten me through many different things. The artists I want to incorporate are (in order above from left to right) John Mayer, Nickel Creek, Dave Matthews Band.

I'm struggling with the center box - I like the JM silhouette on the left in black, and I think I'd do the dancer in black... but it'd be awesome to have something in color in the middle box.

So, now that I've talked it out here, this might be where I'm at:



I'm still working it out.

~J

A few more photos. Yeah, I'm obsessed.

Props to my brother for taking this one of me:


My Dad sang karaoke and the 2nd night he did "Ain't no Sunshine" and dedicated it to my Mom. So awesome. He also got to work on his sketch book.


John Mayer DJ'd in the "Disco" after his 2nd show. It was a HUGE clusterfuck in there. But, Daniel and I fought it so I could attempt getting a photo.


A few photos of the boat for Jesse:

The Mayercraft 2 - Photos!

Alrighty. I have some time now so I thought I'd tell you guys about the cruise and share some photos! I do have to make a few points:

1. Next year I'm SO there. The moment I find out that it's been planned, even if the ship is going to Iraq, I'm buying tickets.

2. John Mayer is really, really cool, and really, really tall. Apparently he's 6'3", which I did not know until I came home and looked it up. (I'm a bad fan.) After seeing him walk right in front of me in the underbelly of the ship, I really had to know the numbers on his height.

3. I won't have any interest in going on any kind of cruise other than one involving music the way this one did.

4. I felt sublimely happy at the end of the last full day on the cruise. Sublimely, weightlessly, euphorically happy. It was the best vacation I've ever been on.

5. I swear that John Mayer and Chris Thile look straight at me a few times during each show. I now have proof.


6. I have decided on the tattoo I want. Pretty sure Daniel and I will get matching ones. Once I have a prototype I'll share it here.


Now for a few photos!

Have I shown you the ship yet? This thing was AMAZING:


The room stewards left really cute towel animals:


Daniel took this one of me while we were doing our lifejacket drill:


Me and Dad:




Me and Daniel (My brother):



Daniel and I with Justin Nozuka:


My Dad pretending to be wasted with a drink in each hand:


My seething jealousy capturing him shaking hands with some people:


When we pretended it was my Dad's birthday:


Waiting in the Spectacular Spectacular lounge:


Just to show a taste of the Lido Deck shows:


Daniel:


Dad:


Serenaded by "La Bamba" in Cabo:


In Cabo, we had drinks with Ryan Shaw and his guitarist Johnny Ash. I took this one of Ryan just chillin' out:


He is a bit of an amateur photographer and was considering buying the D300. Luckily, I brought my D700 with and offered to let him mess around with it. Here are a few of his shots:




Cabo:


My view out the balcony when we docked:




Oh, and since this is a weight loss blog... I should probably post about food, right?

Well, I did pretty darn well. I did some margarita drinking and I ate two desserts. Other than that, I ate a lot of fruit, no meat other than fish and I had NO chips or fries, which were everywhere. :)

The best Indian food:


Lobster, anyone?


Cherries Jubilee:


Stuffed mushrooms with a cream sauce and flaky bread sticks:


Fruit, had a lot of this:


White Forest Chocolate Cake:


~J <3

Heartbreak Warfare

Just a few more videos I'd like to post before I get to sharing some photos from the cruise! :)

A great new song from John Mayer - one of my favorite songs from the cruise.

Best line:
"Good to know it's all a game
Disappointment has a name."




Big thanks to whoever uploaded this! :)


The following videos are not of performances from the cruise, but both of these artists performed these songs on the ship:

This is a great song by Martin Sexton. Please watch it - it's definitely worth it:



Also, just a quick video of Ryan Shaw - he's a very skilled vocalist! This is my favorite song of his, and it's called "Choosin'":




<3 Jenn

Mayer Monday

Yeah, well ... whatever. I missed a lot of things this week, including my Idol recap because I was on a freakin' plane and I don't have DVR.

So, I'm gonna have to try to catch up on AI via youtube or something tonight.

In the mean time, enjoy this and feel free to wish you were Elmo right along with me.



I'll be back later with lots of photos and hopefully some videos from the trip.

~J

A Quick Update...

Since Wes has his blog reading panties in a twist.

I must love you all 'cause internet costs me $.75 a minute.

A few quick photos... MANY more to come. This has been an amazing trip. My favorite moment so far was having margaritas with the incomparable Ryan Shaw and his guitarist Johnny Ash in Cabo, Mexico. AWESOME MUCH??!?!?!



Ryan Shaw's kick ass show last night:


We also have watched the AMAZING Martin Sexton:



As well as the deck show with John Mayer himself:



We have the big show tonight.


I haven't met John, he's not running around the ship and fraternizing (I don't know where Wes got that picture of him in a sailor suit but I sure didn't see it.) He walked in front of my Dad and I, ducking into a side room off limits to guests and before I could muster up enough breath or brain power to say, "John!" ...he was gone.

I was star struck by the back of his head. I love this man.



Yeah.

More to come tomorrow night!

~J