LIVE: Marco Benevento Trio @ Cohoes Music Hall 10/12/2019

By walking onstage to the beats of Grandmaster Flash’s antidrug “White Lines”, the Marco Benevento Trio gave a strong hint of the groovelicious set to come. Marco provided multiple colors and sounds through his virtuosic tinkling on his keyboards ranging from simulated piano, organs to old analog synthesizers. Andy Borger provided a strong pulse on drums. Karina Ryckman was a force of nature on her bass guitar she alternated with playing strong bass lines and actually dueling with Marco and sharing the vocal chores. Much of the music was from the band’s new release Let it Slide.

Opening for Marco was Rochester NY based singer songwriter Mikaela Davis and her band Southern Star. Mikaela has certainly has gone down the road less traveled in her musical journey. Classically trained in harp, but now a singer songwriter, she plays her harp in performance with her trio of Cian McCarthy (guitar), brother Shane McCarthy (bass) and Alex Cote (drums).  As with Marco, the music was hard to categorize, there were clear strains of jam band, pop and even country in her set.