Music: Sinead O'Connor - "Stretched on your grave"
Book: currently without
Mr. Manager and I went to see Toby Lightman open for Edwin McCain last night at First Ave. Pete somebody opened too and I'm going to apologize right now for forgetting his last name but he was rather entertaining as well. Sooooo, Amy at Collectedsounds.com passed on Toby's promo CD about 2 weeks ago for me to take a listen. Toby's acoustic guitar thumping out soul/R&B rhythms coupled with her gravelly and oddly melodic voice caught me hook, line and sinker.
The best way to describe her live concert is to portray the audience. At first the crowd was thin...clinging to tables, to the bars, like lonely barnacles waiting for a whale, but then everyone else just arrived fashionably late I guess. So there were a few hundred present for the show by the time the music started. (But I have to say that there were an extraordinary amount of 30-something drunks falling about, tripping on stairs, spilling drinks - that sort of thing - and it was only 9PM! And on a Sunday night no less.)
Anyway, Pete (the opener, opener) woke everyone up to the point that people were midly interested in the world about them but unwilling to leave the safety of their charis. But then Toby hit the stage and enchanted them. It was like people filtered in from off the street to follow the sound of her voice. Zombie like, but polite. People moved closer and closer to the stage, quiet during her songs and then gradually more and more appreciative of the music coming from the stage. Her last song was a disappointment, a cover of Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" which was done extremely well, but Mike Doughty has been covering it for years AND I would have liked to hear more of Toby's original music. When she finished her set to thunderous applause...there was a crowd of fans waiting not-so-patiently to buy her CDs, sign up for her mailing list and just to say hi. She was a definite hit with McCain fans and I was truly impressed with her set.
She could ditch her second acoustic guitarist though...there was really no need. She was all that and a bag of snacks, by herself, under the lights, winning people over left and right.
