UPDATE (08.13): The below footage appears to have surfaced from a performance on Sunday August 8 at L.A.'s Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center, which was posted to Instagram by the Center's Executive Director, Fernando Pullum.
If you're reading these words, you've likely heard the old adage, 'tone is in your hands.' For those unacquainted with this wisdom, the idea is: even if you take a guitar hero away from their signature, (likely extremely expensive) fine-tuned electric guitar and amp and give them a cheap rig more suitable for beginners, they'll still sound like themselves.
We've seen the likes of Joe Satriani prove this before, and now, a new video of John Mayer has surfaced that gives proponents of this saying still more ammo.
The context of the video – which was uploaded to YouTube earlier this week by user Mic00 – isn't quite clear, but it obviously shows Mayer jamming with a (quite competent, mind you) youth band on his classic tune, Gravity.
Though he kindly cedes the song's guitar solo to the band's young guitarist, Mayer – armed with what looks to be an old Epiphone Les Paul played through a small Roland (or perhaps the adjacent Fender) combo – takes on the song's slow-burning, vibrato masterclass of an intro, and sounds... exactly like himself.
Never mind that Mayer's live rig usually consists of his signature PRS Silver Sky and – before he started becoming more fond of Fractal amp modelers – elite guitar amps from the likes of Dumble.
After the band finishes up with Gravity, the video cuts to an equally pleasing, horn-heavy jam. If only we could all sound that smooth through any rig...
If this leaves you hungry for more Mayer, be sure to check out the new issue of Guitar World, which features the blues guitar star discussing the joys of channeling ’80s Eric Clapton, his pink Silver Sky and more. You can pick up a copy of the mag via Magazines Direct.
