STA closes street for soulful performance

It’s not often that Spokane closes downtown streets for live music, but in the case of singer-songwriter Anthony Hall, they’ve made an exception.

When Hall performed his laid-back acoustic blue-eyed soul set at the Spokane Transit Authority Plaza earlier this year, STA communications specialist Peggy McManus said they asked him to come back to Spokane for a First Friday show.

Hall’s schedule didn’t work out for him to come for First Friday, but McManus said she and others at STA were so impressed by his performance that they wanted to make his next show in Spokane something special.

“We decided to kick off the summer in a big way,” McManus said. “So we asked the city if we could shut down a street.”

The street outside of a bus plaza may be the perfect place for Hall to perform. At age 25, he has lived, traveled and toured all over the U.S. in support of his music – think Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye meets James Taylor and Jason Mraz – finding a network of fans to join his conversation about life and love.

A native of South Florida, Hall is now based in L.A. after a stint in New York and a year in Seattle, and he plans to be in Amsterdam within a year. He is no stranger to Spokane either; he has been spending summers and Christmases here with his mom since he was 4 and lived here for two years in his late teens.

“Spokane is super supportive of new artists,” Hall said. “You’ve got to get your chops up before you can really play out in a lot of cities. This city was just ripe for someone like me who hadn’t played a lot.”

After playing a show in Spokane with Chewelah’s own soul superstar Allen Stone, Hall hit the road and never looked back.

“Allen and I played a show together, and the night of the show, he spent the night at my house because he didn’t have a place to crash,” said Hall. “Literally the next day I packed my stuff and we went to Seattle and didn’t come back.

Hall made his Spokane comeback this year.

During an 18-date West Coast tour, he played three shows here in one week this May, including to a packed house at Zola with a backing band that hadn’t heard his songs before. He said he can’t wait for his performance at the STA Plaza.

Wall Street between Sprague and Riverside avenues will be shut down today from 5 to 10 p.m. Hall will perform with a full band, along with Brooklyn-based blues guitarist Joe Marson, and the night will include a live DJ set from Jake Robideaux, host of KYRS’s “Subterranean” hip-hop show, and food trucks including Nick’s Shameless Sausages and Couple of Chefs.

Although Hall’s long-term plans include five years on the road playing, archiving videos of his performances and recording when he can (Hall is currently in a contract with Russell Simmons’ new All Def Digital, which promotes new artists though YouTube), he said he won’t forget the magic energy he feels when he plays in Spokane.

“I love the scene here,” said Hall. “There’s no other city like it.”