Sometimes life gives you difficult decisions to make. In a world where 90% of the people you interact with are musicians, that happens more often than I care to admit. This past Friday both Mark Erelli and Ben Cosgrove were performing in Burlington…lucky for your old pal Red the venues they were playing at are joined together by a restaurant serving delicious food in between the two, and you can (and we do) dart back and forth between the two venues depending on what you are in the mood for.

Catching half and half I made my way over to Light Club Lamp Shop, perched myself in my usual spot at the bar facing the stage and took in 4 or 5 of Mark’s final tunes in his set. Erelli has this way about him. A confidence that I see feigned all too often by lesser performers, but he absolutely excels at. He simply belongs on a stage performing songs. His comfort and ease being up there is igniting to an audience. He engages in a way that feels as if you are having an intimate conversation with an old friend (even though the shaking of some fancy cocktail rings in your left ear and there are 30-40 other people sitting around). There is an enchantment in that respect of Mark’s performance. Oh yeah…and the songs are pretty damn incredible to boot.

Mark mentioned that it had been a while since he had been up this way performing in this solo capacity. Let’s hope that changes and we see more of this gent and hear his songs up this way more and more. Here he is performing his tune “For A Song” from that evening.