Mike Doughty Bonds With Hometown Crowd in New York

The former leader of Soul Coughing is nothing if not loved in the Big Apple. Performing at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village Saturday night, Brooklyn native Mike Doughty and multi-instrumentalist Andrew "Scrap" Livingston offered up an evening of great music, fun banter and a few surprises.

Playing an entirely acoustic set, Doughty's reflective, emotional, punk-influenced tunes were given a powerful depth and resonance by Livingston's masterful cello playing and nuanced accompaniment on electric guitar. The chemistry between the two lent a touch of defiant pride to '(I Keep On) Rising Up' from Doughty's new album 'Sad Man Happy Man,' and an element of dangerous anger to 'Shunned + Falsified' from 'Skittish / Rockity Roll.' The show offered up a few unscripted moments as well.

Doughty likes to add Q&A sessions to his shows, where audience members write questions on cards to be read on stage and answered by Doughty. More often than not the questions are moments of silly fun, like, "Who would win in a fight, Superman or Jimi Hendrix?" Doughty's answer: "Hendrix. Of course!"

On this evening, Andrew Livingston did the honors reading the questions. The entire room roared with shock and approval when one card contained a wedding proposal between two members of the audience. Doughty laughed heartily and said, "Great way to hijack a show with panache!"

There were a few welcome covers as well. Doughty's live version of 'Looks' by the Student Teachers brought the crowd to near silence, its story of rejection and redemption moving through the room like a familiar smell. His cover of Drink Me's 'Train to Chicago' was a singular moment. It was a night filled with song, laughter and intelligence -- all too rare at times.

As the lights faded to black and Doughty left the stage, a young man standing in the darkness spoke to no one in particular: "That was great. I feel alive again."

Mike Doughty on AOL Music