Review: John Mayer teases and pleases but doesn't satisfy

The book on rock star John Mayer is he's a great guitarist, a hitmaking singer of sensitive, sappy hits, and a world-class romancer of famous women who makes insensitive, inappropriate and downright offensive comments (especially about sex) in interviews.

At 39, Mayer is trying to repair his image with a new album, thoughtful interviews and a tour that he hopes will establish a new book on him.

The seven-time Grammy winner's concert Saturday at Xcel Energy Center was presented as if it were a book, with five chapters whose number and title were broadcast on a giant screen behind the stage.

The conceit was smart, the execution was not.

The book started slowly, painfully slowly, with a full band segment. Chapter 2, an acoustic offering, picked up momentum, with, of all things, a cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." Things peaked in Chapter 3, devoted to the Mayer's blues power trio. Chapter 4 — a full band reprise — ended strongly, with the hits "Why Georgia" (which he sang with conviction) and "Waiting on the World to Change" (which sonically echoed Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing").

Chapter 5, the epilogue, was a pretty self-indulgent encore featuring two tunes from Mayer's new album, "The Search for Everything," his sort of breakup-with-Katy-Perry album that was released Friday.

In a comment filled with the kind of hyperbole of his controversial interviews of years past, Mayer praised the St. Paul crowd as the "most sophisticated music audience in the entire world" for listening to his chameleonic collection of songs and "finding the thread" in them.

He would have realized that the three-song, crowd-thrilling power trio segment with drummer Steve Jordan and bassist Pino Palladino was too short. It teased and pleased when it could have satisfied.

Mayer himself in a video that introduced the chapter self-reverentially called the trio "almost mythical as a live act." Maybe in his own mind. They made only one album and did only one tour. And the three-song sampler on Saturday was truly exciting.

Mayer cut loose on the gritty instrumental dubbed "Jam in E," playing the kind of soaring blues guitar that helped earn him the gig three years ago with Dead and Company (featuring three members of the Grateful Dead). Not only was it in-the-moment music-making (Mayer made some crack about not being rehearsed) but it was the first time all night that the bandleader injected palpable emotion into his guitar playing.

The ensuing "Vultures" featured a rhythmic guitar jam and Mayer dancing to his own music as Palladino soloed. In the next number, Robert Johnson's classic "Crossroads" done à la Cream, Mayer was so excited he was doing mini-jumping jacks while playing. And he tore into his guitar solo as if to say "Eric Clapton, check this out."

Fans may have voted to hear "Gravity," "Daughters" and "Your Body Is a Wonderland," three of Mayer's biggests hits that were missing. Instead, he graced them with five selections from the new album and many lesser known numbers during the two-hour, 20-song show.

Whatever capital Mayer gained touring with the Dead boys the past few years — and he boosted his reputation as a guitarist, musician and singer manifold — seems to be squandered somewhat by his current underwhelming tour.

Sixteen years and seven hit-and-miss studio albums into his career, Mayer might consider writing a new book — or at least a set list — for himself.

Twitter: @JonBream • 612-673-1719