He looked like something from Almost Famous and he sang like Billy Preston. Yet, when Martin Sexton came to Stage Two at the Whitaker Center on October 26, the star of the show was, clearly, Martin Sexton.

Throughout the two hour performance, Sexton was eager to show off his insane dexterity, using his guitar to include whole band arrangements, effortlessly casing through gospel, R&B, Blues, folk, and classic rock. Apart from Joe Bonadio on drums, Sexton filled the room with sound single-handedly, occasionally tapping the audience to sing back-up. Vocally, he conquered anything from soul to scat, falsetto to speak-sing, often pulling vocal gymnastics to emulate instruments.

But it was the simplest moments that proved to be the most profound, as in the rendition of "Glory Bound" in which Sexton sang earnestly about setting out from his home in Syracuse some years ago, confiding, "I’m taking a chance on the wind/I’m packing all my bags/Taking a mistake I gotta make/then I’m glory bound." It was Sexton’s skillful marriage of contrasts — such as allowing that mistakes are necessary for success — that tied the eclectic evening together and made all the elements work.

His songs were laced with angelic and demonic images, cleverly unifying them with lines like "I think my angel’s gone to Vegas." Musical contrasts were abundant as well: he ripped into raucous numbers, howling "Like any other guy, I’ve got sex on the brain," invoked ’70s FM radio rock in "Love Keep Us Together," and then relaxed and took us inward bound in "Real Man."

Sexton improvised across the boards, reinventing the power-pop sensibilities of "Hallelujah" into an exquisite and spacious acoustic offering. Several times Sexton revealed his rock and roll roots, throwing the occasional jammed out segue into a Doors or Beatles tune before backing up into one of his own. The set started with a charming user-friendly anthem and ended with a noisy and chaotic jam.

Throughout, the audience was everything you could possibly want from an audience — energetic and participatory, hooting and hollering when the spirit seized, stone silent and attentive for moments of epiphany and of grace. At times it was unclear whether it was Martin Sexton who was bearing his soul to the audience or if it was the other way around. Indeed, even when he called the audience "children" it was as if he included himself in the claim. As he sang, his head was always tilted upwards, his whole body arched in an upwards direction, and I’m not sure if that means something or not, but I figured I’d mention it just in case.