Mayer to headline Conn. music festival
Fairfield native John Mayer is returning home to play the Sound On Sound music festival on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at Bridgeport’s Seaside Park. The A-list musician will headline the the festival, organizers have confirmed. Bridgeport-born Mayer is the first artist to be announced for the 2023 lineup; the rest of the lineup is set to be announced
Feb. 14.
A number of announcements have been made about the Sound On Sound festival in recent months, including plans to move the festival to a larger site within Seaside Park (the festival will move to the baseball and softball fields area of the park) as well as the promise of a “stadium-level” act that has yet to be announced.
The Sound On Sound news falls on the same day as Mayer’s first-ever fully solo tour announcement, which will take him across the country in the spring. The tour will feature Mayer on stage without a band as he performs both old and new songs on acoustic and electric guitar and piano. “I began my career on stage with only a guitar and a microphone. A lot has changed since then, but I knew one day I’d feel it in my heart to do an entire run of shows on my own again, just like those early days,” Mayer said in a Facebook post. “It took a couple of decades, but I feel it now.”
Dead & Company, an off-shoot of the Grateful Dead featuring Mayer, will also be touring this summer for what is billed as its final tour. Mayer has been consistently touring with Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead since 2015. Though its final tour does not include a Connecticut stop, the band will play nearby at New York’s Citi Field in June.
The last time Mayer played a show near his old stomping grounds was during his “Born and Raised” tour in 2013 at the now-Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, according to setlist.fm. Mayer has performed in the state since then, primarily with Dead & Company in Hartford.