John Mayer’s India Debut Showed That Skill Can Hit Just as Hard as Setlists

On a balmy, occasionally breezy evening at Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Racecourse, the first strums of a six-string guitar sliced through the chatter, giving way to scurrying feet and swelling cheers as thousands turned toward the stage, as if pulled in by gravity itself. At the center of this elemental shift stood John Mayer, entirely on his own and entirely in command.

With a career spanning over two decades, it’s clear the seven-time Grammy winner knows how to reel thousands in with just the pluck of a string. Starting off with the crowd-pleasing “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” Mayer dove headfirst into a stripped-back 90-minute solo performance, produced and promoted by BookMyShow Live, that radiated with the intimacy of an unplugged backroom gig, despite the arena-scale audience. 

Oscillating between an acoustic and electric guitar, along with interludes on a grand piano, Mayer packed a whole lot of heart and gravitas into a relatively bare-bones performance. Foregrounding classics like “Stop This Train” and “Something Like Olivia” in his formidable fretwork, he frequently wandered off into guitar solos. This was perhaps most pronounced in his live renditions of “Neon,” “Changing,” and “Gravity,” where it felt like he was stretching the notes to see how far they would bend. 

Mayer has always been known as a performer who thrives on restraint. He doesn’t feel the need to hide behind pyro bursts or backing tracks, keeping the spotlight squarely on his prowess as a singer and guitarist. Not once did the set feel sparse. If anything, the absence of any padding made each lyric land harder and each riff ring longer.

And while many legacy acts lean heavily on chart staples, especially when testing the waters in a new country, Mayer steered clear of some of his more popular tracks, including “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Heartbreak Warfare.” He resisted turning the night into a greatest-hits singalong, instead digging into deeper cuts like “Come Back To Bed.” He did sprinkle in some crowd favorites like “Why Georgia,” but it was a refreshing, even if mildly heartbreaking, change of pace in a live music market filled with performers who seem perfectly content to coast on their heyday highs.

Mayer won over the crowd with the same boyish charm that made him a 2000s-era heartthrob. He riffed off the audience as much as he riffed on his guitar, throwing quips about everything from haircuts to handmade posters, and even joking that you “can’t stop John” after he discovered “some diminished [guitar chord] thing” during a live version of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord.” He occasionally played clips tracing his journey over the years, including a snippet from the documentary Inside The Square, released alongside his debut album Room for Squares, taking the audience back to his beginnings. He also took a moment to acknowledge and apologize for the postponed gig, adding that he hopes to return to India soon.

Unburdened by the bells and whistles that often define a nostalgia icon’s first foray in India, Mayer’s one-night-only solo show was a testament to the sheer skill and magnetism that first made him a pop-rock force to reckon with. While many die-hard fans were inevitably left wishing for more of his familiar hits, his India debut was a show of strength that played out more like a free-flowing conversation than a victory lap.