Watch: John Mayer Sings Onstage for First Time in Two Years

On Wednesday, John Mayer sang onstage for the first time since he started battling the vocal issues that led to two surgeries and a canceled tour last year. Mayer made an appearance at a Bozeman, Montana, benefit show for firefighters, marking the first time he has sung in public in almost two years. He didn’t reach deep into his catalog, starting with “If I Ever Get Around to Living” off his latest album, Born and Raised, and later joined the Zac Brown Band and others onstage for a jam on the Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek.”

“The sound of my voice sounded like my body was a radio dial and someone had knocked it and it was half-off the station,” Mayer told the crowd of the granulomas that were discovered on his vocal cords. “I went to see the doctor about a couple of weeks ago and he looked at my throat, and I think it’s gone.” But the recovery left a lasting effect on Mayer; he told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that although the granulomas healed nine weeks after surgery, he required Botox injections as part of the recovery. The injections typically take six to nine months to wear off, and they’ve affected Mayer’s ability to sing high notes. “It lets up very slowly,” he said. “Every couple of weeks, there’s another note.”