Concert | Philip Phillips & John Mayer

Besides eating, working out, and college football, one of our other favorite hobbies is music.  Todd is a musician (piano, keys, trumpet) and used to play in many bands.  His first music love is jazz (the real kind, not the smooth kind), but he won’t totally reject other music that’s well-written and interesting.  And he won’t outright reject music that I really like.  And for the last 10 years, I’ve really liked John Mayer.  I do like his earlier CDs better than his last two CDs though.  So, over the last 10 years, we’ve gone to see John Mayer in concert three times.  I don’t think we’ve seen him as much as we’ve seen the Barenaked Ladies or Earth, Wind & Fire, but it might be close. 

On Friday night (10/4), we went to see John Mayer for the fourth time, at Sleep Train Amphitheater in Chula Vista.  (I liked it much better when it was called Coors Amphitheater.  Heck, I’ll even settle for Cricket Wireless Amphitheater.)

No, we weren’t this close.  Photo courtesy of our friend Maria, who was in the good seats!

We got home from work and had some takeout sandwich and salad for dinner.  Then we left for Chula Vista at 6pm.  With the Friday after-work traffic AND concert traffic, we didn’t arrive at the parking lot until about 7:10pm.  We were able to get lawn tickets to the concert for $20 each on Groupon!  That was such an awesome deal, because there was no Ticketmaster fees or anything.  Just $20 straight up.  Print the Groupon out and that was our ticket to the show. 

When we got in, there were plenty of lawn space available, even with center stage view.  So we put our blanket down. 

As soon as we sat down, Philip Phillips started playing, right on time at 7:30! 

We were pretty far from the stage on the lawn, so I wasn’t able to get good photos.  Todd got some Coke and popcorn from the concession stand, which he loved.  A selfie with our Canon point & shoot. 

Philip Phillips saved his crowd favorite song, “Home”, for last.  Then there was a half-hour break to set up the stage for John Mayer.

And boy, were people there to see John Mayer! (Photo by Maria again.)

He started the concert with “Queen of California” from his “Born And Raised” CD.  (Quite appropriate for where he was, I suppose!) 

I really liked the moving backgrounds that they used for the show.  Lots of cool graphics.

Including this one with moving stars on strings.

And I liked how this photo turned out.  Kind of cool.  Kind of eerie.

We left a little bit early to beat the traffic out of the amphitheater and Chula Vista.  Yes, we were those “old” people who didn’t want to get stuck in traffic for two hours getting out of a concert on Friday night!  And yea, I’m ok with that.

I posted a photo to Instagram at the concert.  Then a couple of days later, I got tweeted at by Crowd Album, saying that I contributed to their 10/4 John Mayer concert album.  So I clicked over and was amazed at all the great photos that the crowd captured at the concert!  What an awesome idea to have a crowd-sourced album based on social media sharing!

Here’s a review of the concert by the San Diego Union Tribune:  John Mayer meets humility in San Diego

And here’s the setlist.

I just love how the internet and social media helps me capture event memory details that I may have forgotten!  We totally enjoyed the Philip Phillips & John Mayer concert.  What a great experience for $20!