Mr. A to Z

Warning: This post doesn't involve playing its songs just like on the albums.

That hat would piss me off, but he pulls it off far too well.
Photo Source: steinbaugh.com

Last week I finally saw my man Jason Mraz. The gig was a long time coming - I've been a fan since his first album, but no more-so than after I got his bootleg from a coffee shop in San Diego called Java Joe's. The vibe of the gig (just him with an acoustic and some joker named Toca on bongos) is quite simply the best you could ever expect to get out of a free coffeeshop artist - light and bouncy, lamenting but not intense, and with an awesome sense of humour. From his rendition of "At Last" by Etta James to his Spanish ad lib of "Our house (in the middle of the street)", its beauty and comedy with a six-string.

I missed out on seeing Mr. Mraz at Fuji Rock in '06, so I was stoked to hear he was adding onto his tour this time around to include Tokyo, Osaka and Hiroshima. Everyone has always told me he's 1000 times better live, and I believed it. Boy, ain't that the truth.
The man exudes flair, modesty, talent and...well, geek, in one lovable combination that shines out on stage. His band don't let him down either - along with bass, drums and the ever-present Toca on percussion (the dude's a big half-black guy with braids, a cowboy hat and Oakleys - and yet exactly like the nervous joker on the bootleg from JJ's), on the latest tour he also sports a 3-piece brass ensemble (sax, trumpet, trombone) that would steal the show if the man wasn't so damned entertaining himself. I haven't seen a band have this much fun since Ben Harper and his Innocent Criminals, but Jason's take-nothing-too-seriously attitude pulls my strings just a little bit more.

Opening with Make It Mine, he quickly (but not rushedly) moved through a set heavy on the new album (We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things). Older tracks Geek In The Pink, Bella Luna and of course Remedy (I Won't Worry) featured too, but you could tell the band was really digging the fresh material and new stuff to jam with, as that's where all the fun was to be had. I'm Yours a very mainstream track by Jason's standards (sure, he sounds poppy, but there's just so much more to his style that mere Jack-Johnson/John Mayer analogous sound) was so much more entertaining live, especially with a Bob Marley sing-a-long in the middle ("every little thing, is gonna be alright!").

Other standouts included The Dynamo Of Volition (classic Jason geek-rap) and Butterfly, a sexy track that only gets sexier when infused with the jazz trio. And of course noone there would forget A Beautiful Mess - the whole crowd held their breath until the last string was plucked and the last lyric spilled (Jason had to step away from the mic to let people know they could clap - and clap they did, going crazy to make up for all the silence throughout the track...)

In the encore Jason took the time to introduce his band, taking Polaroids of everyone and flicking them into the crowd. Some lucky joker got themselves a timer-ed shot of the whole band, though I don't think anyone needed a memento - somehow feel noone there is going to forget the night anytime soon.

Thanks Jase. And though I'm disappointed you didn't play the track below, it was still the best live gig I've seen this year.