Jason Mraz at NJPAC, February 23, 2015: Set List

I really thought I was done with this tour after the show I saw in Paris. I had no plans to see Mraz again. Honest.

But then I decided to quit my job and travel around the world, and a friend convinced me to join her in New York for a week. And it just happened that Mraz had a show in New Jersey that weekend. And it’s only about 20 minutes by train from Manhattan to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. So I could hardly pass it by, right?

The NJPAC is lovely, but the sound wasn’t the best. Far too much bass, although since a lot of the show was just Jason and hit guitar it wasn’t that big a problem.

Jason came out to introduce Raining Jan (no “e” this time because Mai was missing due to a family emergency). The audience always seems surprised that he just wanders out on stage to say hello instead of waiting for a big fancy introduction. I think it’s one of the best things about him.

Then the ladies came out, but they only did two songs to kick things off. Maybe because they were down a woman? They started with one I hadn’t heard at any of the previous shows, which was a nice change of pace.

• Desperate Sails
• The Opposite of Blue

I love Mona Tavakoli.

And then Jason came out to join them and they launched into:

• Love Someone
• Dynamo of Volition (I love the way he changed the lyrics up at the end, singing one of the lines as “You’re the best recipe that I’ve got in the kitchen.”)
• A Beautiful Mess
• I Take the Music Everywhere I Go (This one was new to me! Always fun to hear something for the first time. And this is the point where they all came to the front of the stage and played around one microphone together.)
• Hello, You Beautiful Thing
• Lucky
• Make It Mine
• Quiet (This is quickly becoming my favorite live song. Although as soon as he plays “Plane” or “I’m Coming Over” that changes. It’s so hard to pick just one.)
• Frank D. Fixer (This started solo and then the full band came in and stayed until intermission.)
• 3 Things
  

  On “Mr. Curiosity”: “It took me forever to learn to lip sync that.”

• Mr. Curiosity
• Bottom of the Sea

At the end of the night this little Mraz fan declared, “This was the best show ever!”

Intermission

• Long Drive (He played this one with the band and didn’t bring up a young lady to go on a date with him. Maybe that bit was getting old.)
• After an Afternoon (I love hearing the old, old stuff!)

Jason took a little break here to say hello to a girl in the audience who had a sign saying it was her 18th birthday. “Congratulations. You’ve just made it through the easiest part of your life,” he said, and the audience, which looked to be mostly people over the age of 30, had a big laugh. He then encouraged everyone to create an “Acknowledgement tsunami” where you say a flood of nice things about someone. And he changed the girl’s name from Abigail to Abby, “because we really just need something with two syllables.”

• You Fkin Did It (He sang it as “Abby did it, she really did it yeah…” and managed to do the whole song while only saying the F word once. I wondered if that was partly because of the two small girls in the front row who he saw and smiled at early in the evening. Maybe he tries to avoid the swears in front of kids.)
• Becky’s sitar solo -> 93 Million Miles (At the end of this one he added a verse about the Milky Way that was really pretty. He also had all the lights turned out and made everyone sing the “Home” part together in the dark. It was beautiful and moving and perfect.)
• Shine
• I’m Yours (During this song he was watching and smiling at the two little girls in front of me again, and I swear when he sang “We are one big family” he gave an extra smile and nod to their cute gay dads.)
• I’ll Be There (Yes, the Jackson 5 song.)
• I Won’t Give Up
• It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye