Anthology Serves Up Rare Croce

The son of Ingrid and the late Jim Croce took the stage at Anthology for a rare local appearance and, with a little help from his friends, proved once again he is one of San Diego’s most talented singer/songwriters — and piano and guitar players — that nobody seems to know about.

Croce has core of fans who seemed to all be there, but this entertaining performer should be selling out much bigger venues. That said, it was as good as it gets hearing him at such an acoustically pleasing and comfortable nightclub as Anthology.

For over two hours, Croce played and sang selected songs from his discography. He started with his original honky-tonk piano blues tunes, moved to soft-rock and mellow-jazz tunes, and blew the audience away with a powerful cover of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" as well as two wonderful covers of his dad's hits "Lover's Cross" and "Operator."

Local talent Greg Page and Steve Poltz joined Croce onstage to lend some backing vocals. At one point Poltz said to the audience, "A.J. is in rare form tonight." I thought, Lucky me.

• Concert: A.J. Croce
• Date: July 28
• Venue: Anthology
• Seats: bar, center, main floor