Getting COVID again, John Mayer shifts tour dates: ‘This one’s got the better of me’
Singer-songwriter John Mayer has contracted COVID-19 for a second time within two months, forcing him to reschedule four dates on his ongoing Sob Rock tour.
“Whelp. More members of the band tested positive for Covid today, and I was one of them,” the Grammy Award winner wrote Thursday on Instagram. “This means we have to reschedule the next four shows, which we’ve already rescheduled.”
The Sob Rock tour, which includes musician Alexander 23, had a stop scheduled for Friday in Pittsburgh, but that show has been rescheduled for May 5. Other affected performances have been rescheduled for May 7 in Belmont Park, N.Y., and May 9 and 10 in Boston.
The tour, initially meant to run through April, is expected to resume on March 11 in Las Vegas with “Same Drugs” and “Evergreen” singer Yebba as the opening act.
John Mayer’s ‘Sob Rock’ conjures the era of pastel color schemes and Bret Easton Ellis bestsellers, but beneath the surface lie songs of increased maturity.
Mayer, 44, played two shows in New York City and one in Washington, D.C. earlier this week. On Monday, he adjusted his second New York show’s format after drummer Steve Ferrone and background vocalist Carlos Ricketts tested positive for the virus.
Mayer performed an acoustic set at Madison Square Garden and later said that the Roots drummer Questlove “stepped in on an hour’s notice to help end the show on such a powerful and definitive note.”
Drummer J.J. Johnson, formerly of the Tedeschi Trucks Band and who performs with Gary Clark Jr., helped out with the D.C. show on Wednesday.
“I’m so sorry to make you change your plans,” Mayer wrote Thursday to ticket-holders. “This is a bummer for everyone in the band and crew, to say nothing of the question hanging over everyone’s head - mine included - as to how I tested positive on PCR twice in two months.”
The “Daughters” and “Your Body Is a Wonderland” musician, who contracted a breakthrough COVID-19 infection in January, said that his first case was “extremely mild,” but “this one’s got the better of me.” His infection earlier this year prevented him from performing at a festival concert in Cancún, Mexico, alongside Dead & Company, a band made up of former Grateful Dead members.
Musician John Mayer and comic Jeff Ross had to get Bob Saget’s car back from LAX. So they decided to go live on Instagram and honor the late ‘Full House’ star.
“We’ll give you everything we’ve got at these upcoming shows, just as soon as we rest up and regroup,” he wrote Thursday, signing off “with love and appreciation.”
Earlier this month, Mayer said that he’s working on new music, namely a tribute song to his dear friend and “Full House” star Bob Saget, who died in January following a head injury.
“I have this song that’s my friend, sort of my little collection plate for ideas or thoughts I have about Bob,” Mayer said on the “SiriusXM and Pandora Small Stage Series Show.” “I put it in the plate and keep working on the song. I work on it when I’m in the car and driving. I know how the song goes. This song that I have is very much this connected tissue I have to him, and I just keep working on it.”
“I loved that guy so much,” he said of Saget, adding that the comedian was on of his “favorite people in the galaxy and I’m proud of this relationship.”
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