Marc Cohn with Toby Lightman
St. George Theater, Staten Island, NY
Thursday 2008 August 21
This is another in my ongoing series of reviews of Marc Cohn shows. See this earlier one and this one as well for comparison.
The St. George is a beautiful venue, an old vaudeville theater (I assume) which has been either renovated or maintained lovingly in its original state. Ornate and glitzy, it nonetheless provided excellent sound for an intimate concert. The opener was a bluesy singer/songwriter named Toby Lightman, who has been featured (apparently) on the Home Shopping Network as well as singing the opening for NASCAR on Fox. Unfortunately I don’t know any of Ms. Lightman’s work, so I can’t review it in depth. She seemed to have a nice range, though, and her songs aren’t bad at all. She does appear to be a bit nervous on a stage by herself.
After Ms. Lightman’s forty-minute set and a small break, Marc Cohn came on stage with his current touring band: Shane Fontayne on guitar; Joe Bobadillo (?) on drums; and John Ossman on bass. The set was high-energy and went on for more than an hour and a half, including two encores. The playlist is below the fold.
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