John Mayer played in Nashville last night and apologized to his fans, the people he hurt and his fellow bandmates breaking down periodically:

“In the quest to be clever,” “I completely forgot about the people that I love and that love me.”

He then said that he had entered a world of “selfishness and greediness and arrogance.” He said that he thought if he could just be “speedy and witty and pull together as many fast words and phrases as I could, that I would be clever enough to buy myself another day without anybody pinning me down and saying, ‘You’re a creep.’

“I should have just given that up and played the guitar,” he went on. “I didn’t. So I decided I would try to be as clever as possible all the time, and I did that at the expense of people that I love and that feels absolutely terrible.

“I think it’s important that you know that everybody on this stage is here playing with me not because they condone what I say in any interview … they’re on this stage because they support myself as a possible future grown-up,” he continued as the audience cheered.

And maybe they see something that I don’t. So maybe I need to take a break from trying to be clever and spend a little time looking at what they see — because they’ve done an unbelievable thing by standing on this stage and standing by my side playing tonight.

“It’s just not worth being clever,” he said, adding: “I quit the media game. I’m out. I’m done. I just want to play my guitar.”