cornershopstudios » Marcus Foster @ La Sala Rossa

On the coldest of nights, Marcus Foster stood alone on stage with his guitar, stirring our thoughts and sweeping away our worries, even if only to Chase The Blues for a couple of hours. He holds himself with humility unlike many, and carries a time-honored croon, an unassailable rasp. Amidst the creaking of floors and the scattered tables of a predominantly female audience, Foster closes his eyes and drones as though he was listening to his words for the very first time. From abysmal verse to verse, you find yourself In Your Head and captured by Marcus’ numinous performance. In between songs, he apologizes and nervously laughs as he goes through his Mary Poppins pockets to find his set cheat sheet. Tapping and convulsing, lost in his song, he casts Shadows of the City, and beneath the trouncing of the spotlights, he addresses The Room. “Have you ever seen the haunted ancient morning, Sweep the stars out from the sky?” There is a wisdom buried beneath his youth, and a playful candor that sets him apart, weaving comic relief into his tales of old. With simplicity and grace, the room is filled by the sound of a man bewitched by his guitar. At one point, Foster almost knocks down the mic stand, and abruptly comes to a halt. But when his eyes finally open, it’s hard to believe that the same guy who entertains us with food stories as he tunes his guitar is the one and the same. It’s possibly that charm that makes you want to follow him anywhere, on a bus across America perhaps. And my thoughts drift to his very words, “The silent sky is folding up the evening, With the same old sigh.”

simply ONE of the masses