You can chip away at Mark Erelli’s senses, but you can’t diminish his sense of wonder.
When the Boston singer-songwriter steps onstage at Crystal Ballroom tonight (March 24), he might not be able to see the warm faces his homegrown fanbase, but he’ll feel them, loud and clear. For the past month, Erelli’s toured the States with a new album — Lay Your Darkness Down — and a new perspective, after being diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an eye disease that causes progressive vision loss.
“I still tour as much as I ever have, but my vision issues have changed how I perceive the spaces I perform in,” he tells Vanyaland. “Unfortunately, I can’t really see the audience much at all anymore. I do ‘feel’ their presence, though, and that sense of togetherness is more important to me than ever. Sometimes people with visual disabilities preemptively shrink their world to a scale that is easier to navigate, yet often more lonely and isolated. When I’m standing on stage, I may not be able to see the crowd, but I very palpably feel held by their witness. It’s a very humbling, almost sacred, experience.”
February’s Lay Your Darkness Down uses Erelli’s deft lyricism to glimpse at the world in a new light, mining ordinary days for details that seem inconsequential in the moment, but ultimately add to life’s richness: Sporadic breaks of bright blue sky on overcast days, long talks by the lake, detritus from a rainstorm highlighted under a gleaming sunset. “Don’t blink / Drink it in / It happens once and it might not happen again,” Erelli sings on “You’re Gonna Wanna Remember This,” offering an hauntingly pertinent credo for fans gathered in Davis Square tonight.
“In some strange way, my disease has provided me with the chance to truly live what I sing,” Erelli shares. “Sharing my diagnosis is my way of laying down my own darkness. By making my private struggles public, maybe it helps others to see that we all have a choice. We can be overwhelmed by the shadows, or use them to show where the light is coming from. As for me, no matter what happens, I’ll forever be looking for the light.”
MARK ERELLI + JOBI RICCIO :: Friday, March 24 at Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Square in Somerville, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $20 :: Event page :: Advance tickets