Recap: A Night of Carole King at Cohoes Music Hall 3/23/2024

March 23rd was my (Rob Smittix) birthday and what better way to spend my special day than with my Mom for A Night of Carole King at The Cohoes Music Hall!

Growing up I discovered Carole King’s Tapestry album in my Mom’s record collection. Even though I was only 9 or 10 years old I knew that I was hearing something very magical and I have been a fan ever since. Carole King is my Mom’s absolute favorite and I knew that there wouldn’t be any other place in the world besides The Cohoes Music Hall that we should be that night.

No one expected the storm of the century last Saturday but the snow was falling hard. People all over the region lost power and there were many accidents. It was definitely a dangerous driving situation and there was a point where we thought we should perhaps play it safe and not venture to the show. I looked online and saw that many events in the Capital District were cancelled because of the weather that evening but The Cohoes Music Hall made this statement: ALL Saturday, March 23 ticket holders for “A Night of Carole King” – the 8pm show will go on as scheduled. Please allow extra time while traveling to the theater.” So we braved the weather and we got there in time for the show.

A Night of Carole King was produced and hosted by Zan Strumfeld of Zan & The Winter Folk band and she did such an amazing job. Just two days prior to this event I got to see Zan and Will open up for The Chatham Rabbits at the music hall, which got me extra excited to see the the Carole King tribute. I then realized that Zan wasn’t actually performing at the Carole King show and I was a bit disappointed because I love her voice. But then… Zan surprised us and did sing “Crying in the Rain” I was so happy to hear her voice.

Hold on Honeys opened up the show with “Way Over Yonder” and the night was now in full motion! Hold on Honeys are among the absolute greatest harmonic voices in the entire area. Then a very special and fun treat for the night was their rendition of “Chicken Soup with Rice.” Angelina Valente came in swinging with “Beautiful” and it was beautiful indeed. And then to my surprise I found out that Carole King wrote “Locomotion,” what? How did I not know that?

One of the coolest things about this show was that not only did it focus on Carole King’s hit songs but it also brought to our attention how many songs that she wrote for others. Steve Hammond was a really great and unexpected choice for a Carole King tribute. He focused more on the songs that Carole wrote for others and performed “Don’t Bring Me Down” (The Animals), “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (The Monkees) and that song The Byrds did for The Easy Rider soundtrack. Caity & The Gallaghers came on next to close the night. Crowd pleasers were definitely “It’s Too Late” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” Caity has a really strong voice and I suggest that you definitely catch her in concert soon.

But wait… there’s more. So this was the highlight of the night! Everyone and  I mean everyone from the show came on stage together to sing “Where You Lead I Will Follow.” What a curtain call!

Thank you so much to The Cohoes Music Hall for this wonderfully produced SOLD OUT show from Zan Strumfeld!