Where do recovered boy band fans go when they still feel the need to drool over eye candy? While many of them are still screaming over Justin Timberlake, the shrieking on John Mayer’s live album, Any Given Thursday, suggests some have moved on to a more mature dreamboat. The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter is not without talent or a golden voice, but his cherubic face, bedroom eyes, and saccharine love songs, such as “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” move the ladies to near hysteria during live performances. And Mayer apparently loves the female attention. Why else would he include girly anthems such as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” in live sets?
JOHN MAYER
with
COUNTING CROWS
7pm
Thursday, July 24
$29.50-40.50
224-9600 or
www.ticketmaster.com
Verizon Wireless Ampitheater
16765 Lookout Rd.
657-8300

Adding to the swoon factor of Mayer’s latest tour are fellow heartbreaking crooners, Counting Crows. Although the Crows have significantly weightier lyrics, music, and style, they share Mayer’s obsession with the theme of love. On their latest album, Hard Candy (so named because it explores that which is sweet, but painful to swallow), lead singer Adam Duritz is more tortured than ever on songs such as “If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel is Dead)” – a reference to a late member of the Band – and Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.”

Straight men should jump at this perfect opportunity to score sensitivity points with the ladies. Any recent tension in a relationship can easily be soothed with a simple, “Baby, this song reminds me of you.” Sure, the screaming teens in the front rows might be a bit annoying, but in the end you just might thank Mayer and the Crows for inciting a sappy, yet sincere summer of love. •

This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2003.