On a slightly cooler than average July evening, swarms of people filed into Smirnoff Music Center in Dallas, Texas, a buzz of excitement increasing with each new face that walked through the gate. Everyone from young children to grandparents and everyone in between came to join in the festivities, making the nature of the concert nearly undeterminable from the stands alone. Only the occasional homemade “I Love John Mayer” t-shirt gave any clue to what could be expected.

Soon after the gates opened, one of Mayer’s guitarists for the summer tour, David Ryan Harris set up on a smaller side stage to play his own thirty minute acoustic set, which drew the attention of many of the fans milling passed. With a smaller underground following, Harris isn’t a household name despite having released two CDs and the vocalist of Brand New Immortals. Those who knew of him yelled out requests, mostly for “Pretty Girl”, while others crowded near the front of the small stage to get a postcard with information as to who this man was. He had a good rapport with the crowd, telling a little about him between songs as he tuned up his guitar, and his music, though maybe not as polished as the headliner’s, was mellow and well-written enough to create a line around where he sold and signed copies of his most recent EP, Atlanta, afterwards.

A lackluster response came with the arrival of DJ Logic, few realizing what his realizing what his exact purpose was – if there even was one. For forty minutes he said very little while spinning a mixture of mostly rap, both new and old. Most of the crowd took no notice him until he put on a bit of Usher’s “Yeah” and Kelis’ “Milkshake,” causing a few of the teens to get excited to the confusion of anyone nearby unfamiliar with today’s Top 40 list.

For the first time in my personal concert career, the main show actually started on time, with Maroon 5 bringing forth manic screams from female fans as they took the stage at exactly a quarter before eight. Despite having the setting sun beaming directly in the face of the band, their energy radiated into the crowd as they ran through all the requisite hits as well as a good portion of the songs from their debut album. Halfway through the first song, lead singer Adam Levine magically produced a pair of sunglasses that, once protected from the sun, seemed to give him permission to run all over the two-tiered stage. Even with guitarist James Valentine interacting with the audience and using as much of the stages as possible, throughout their entire set, it seemed like their stage presence lacked what was necessary to cover such a large stage. Though they keep getting bigger, their stage show still seems confined to a smaller club setting.

Perhaps what they also needed was more time. Within the fifty minute allotted to them, they moved quickly from one song to the next, never spending enough time to change up instrumentation or make the songs any different from the studio version. A surprise to casual fans came in the form of the brand new “Wasted Years”, a song that they’ve been playing throughout the summer tour. Not a departure from the working formula they’ve created, the song flowed nicely within their set, perhaps even sounding like a song off of Songs About Jane to the casual listener.

With a quick set change involving the strategic placement of paper screens covered with the image of what appears to be winter trees and a new background, the excitement in the crowd grew until the waiting almost seemed unbearable. Finally with the sky full of stars and a light breeze playing across the lawn seats, all the lights went out and the main attraction came out on stage.

John Mayer belongs on stage. Anyone in the 13,000+ crowd should have been able to tell that from the moment he started with “Bigger Than My Body” through the spectacular musical free-for-all that he and his band turned “’83”. His charisma and boyish charm pours out of him as he bounces across the stage without restraint, possibly enjoying the music more than the audience itself. Each song transformed into something different from the studio albums as he changed lyrics and added new guitar solos whenever he seemed to feel like it was appropriate. Halfway through the evening he even pointed out the amount of time he’d spent playing his guitar instead of singing, saying, “I’ve played the guitar too much tonight. I’m going to be scolded in the morning.” Though with the cheers he received, the audience didn’t seem to mind.

Mayer infused a tinge of blues in the middle of his set, pulling out a nearly ten minute long song titled, “Inner City Blues", sharing lead guitar duties with David Ryan Harris, who’d traded his acoustic in for a much more satisfying electric. Hot guitar solos mixed with Mayer’s vocals, which suddenly became much throatier than in his own songs. Many seemed downright shocked to see this baby-faced twenty-six year old pulling off a song that only true Southern guitar legends are even allowed to attempt, making even those who might have doubted his talent to pay their respects to his skills.

He then cooled down the atmosphere while still following his blues trend by going into his newest single, “Come Back to Bed”, a song that customarily has Mayer attempting to “rock out... quietly” halfway through. A hush not heard all evening fell over the entire crowd as everyone collectively leaned forward to hear exactly how quietly this kid could rock. After running through the single “My Stupid Mouth” – claiming it was about “a boy who meets a magical frog”... um, okay, John – and a crowd favorite with “Something’s Missing”, he pulled out a cover, reminiscing about how the last time he’d been in Dallas, he had the opportunity to play alongside Eric Clapton; in memorandum of that time, he played a passionate version of “Old Love”, a lesser known Clapton classic. Yet again, Mayer and Harris shared guitar solos, the latter getting a chance to shine while the former hide away from the spotlight near his drummer.

With a run through of the way familiar “No Such Thing” and “Your Body Is A Wonderland”, Mayer went off on a soliloquy about how fleeting summer can be and how “tonight, under the stars, together in the heat, this is our summer. Right now.” He ended the speech with the introspective “Clarity”, complete with horn solos on both the saxophone and trumpet. As if the show was over, the entire band dispersed and Mayer thanked the crowd for the hundredth time before leaving, the lights going out with his disappearance.

When they revived, a chair set in front of his microphone next to an acoustic guitar, where Mayer soon settled in the midst of screams and flashbulbs. Without a word, he played a touching version of “Homelife” before going into the even more depressing “Comfortable”. Once done with this slight solo session, the band returned with a rousing rendition of “‘83”, a song about looking back at the carefree days of childhood and longing to know what happened to them. Full of so much energy and passion despite it being the end of a two hour concert, Mayer ran and jumped and bounced around the stage, introducing his band mates before falling onto the floor and playing his last solo of the night before he reluctantly left the stage. If Dallas didn’t have a noise ordinance that meant the show had to end by eleven, it’s quite possible he’d have stayed on stage much longer, considering the fun he seemed to be having and sharing with the crowd.

John Mayer is as unlikely of a teen idol as it gets. He’s also an unlikely blues legend in the making, both too young and too “sensitive”, critics would say, to really understand them. Somehow, within the span of two hours, he managed to prove both the titles true, making the teenage (and middle aged) girls scream while also making everyone’s jaws dropped who knew little of his onstage prowess. His summer tours are quickly becoming a staple of the big concert season in Dallas, Texas, and if he keeps playing as he did that warm-but-not-hot Friday night, he should expect to come back many times more.