John Mayer continued his 2019 summer tour on Saturday night with a performance at Providence, RI’s Dunkin Donuts Center. The two-set performance marked the second show on Mayer’s 2019 summer tour following the tour opener in Albany on Friday night.
The two-set performance featured originals from throughout Mayer’s career as well as a pair of familiar covers in the Grateful Dead‘s “Fire On The Mountain” and Tom Petty‘s “Free Fallin’”.
Between songs during the show, Mayer addressed the rocky leadup to Woodstock 50, the anniversary festival (still, technically) set to take place on August 16th–18th. Mayer and his Dead & Company brethren are scheduled to perform at the event, though tickets have yet to go on sale and permits have yet to be secured for a new location after Watkins Glen revoked the event’s site license earlier this summer (and Vernon Downs denied a last-ditch effort to host the festival there).
Speaking about the idea behind bringing Dead & Company to Woodstock 50, Mayer explained, “Those guys, they didn’t have a great time at Woodstock [in 1969], and I thought, ‘What an awesome opportunity to help go make things right for the three guys in the band who were in the Grateful Dead [Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann]. Well, I don’t know if that show’s happening anymore, but I do know that this show is happening right now [laughs]. I know a lot of you are asking me, ‘Hey John, do you have the permits for tonight’s show? Do you have the permits? I want you to know we have all the permits for tonight’s show on file, ready to show you if you do so request. So without any further ado, let’s continue on with this fully legit show.” Watch a video of the amusing interlude below:
My video of @JohnMayer taking a dig at @woodstockfest and their lack of permits at his Providence show this Saturday. @RollingStone @L4LM @consequence #permits #Woodstock50 pic.twitter.com/70w6iLML7W
— Concertvids34 (@concertvids34) July 21, 2019
Mayer has previously spoken out about the “wildness” surrounding the fraught lead-up to the would-be anniversary festival. As Mayer told his friend and TV personality Andy Cohen back in May,
I’m as much of a spectator as anyone else is to this wildness. I was told, ‘Yeah it’s not happening.’ There’s only one person still saying, ‘No, it’s gonna go.’ It reminds me of the scene in Monty Python [and The Holy Grail] where the knight is now missing the arm and the leg and he’s hopping up and down and saying, ‘It’s just a flesh wound.’ If those guys [Dead & Company] end up going, I will go, but it seems to me now: ‘It’s just a flesh wound’ and blood is spurting everywhere.
While the fate of Woodstock remains uncertain (and, at this point, wholly unlikely), you can still catch Mayer on tour throughout the remainder of the summer. For a full list of upcoming John Mayer tour dates, head to his website here.
You can watch a selection of videos from John Mayer’s Providence performance below:
John Mayer – “Heartbreak Warfare”
[Video: Concertvids34]
John Mayer – “Fire On The Mountian” [Grateful Dead cover]
[Video: Concertvids34]
John Mayer – “Walt Grace’s Submarine Test, January 1967” (Acoustic)
[Video: Concertvids34]
Setlist: John Mayer | Dunkin Donuts Center | Providence, RI | 7/20/19
Set One: Heartbreak Warfare, Love On The Weekend, I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You), No Such Thing, Waiting On The Day, Helpless, Who Says, Paper Doll, Changing, Dead Marie
Set Two: Walt Grace’s Submarine Tes, January 1967, Your Body Is A Wonderland, Free Fallin’ [Tom Petty cover], In The Blood, Still Feel Like Your Man, Dreaming With A Broken Heart, Queen of California > Fire on the Mountain [Grateful Dead cover], Slow Dancing In A Burning Room, Waiting On The Word To Change, I Guess I Just Feel Like
Encore: Gravity, New Light
The post John Mayer Covers “Fire On The Mountain”, Jokes About Woodstock 50 Permits In Providence [Videos] appeared first on L4LM.
