Michael McDonald's sold-out concert Friday night at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center was a reminder of one obvious thing -- the homeboy just doesn't perform around here often enough, and needs to do something about that.

McDonald's fundraiser for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse was a rousing homecoming for the Ferguson native.

McDonald, seated at a set of keyboards for the duration of the show, opened with a cover of Beth Nielsen Chapman's stark "Peace," an interesting choice to begin a show. McDonald explained it was a Christmas song, but he finds it fitting any day of the year, particularly after 9/11.

It later made further sense once we saw the concert was being framed by "Peace" and another cover at the end of the show, Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." What beautiful selections those were in his hands.

The soulfully smoky singer, known as much for his work with the Doobie Brothers as he is for his solo work, zig-zagged through both entities and more Friday night, turning it up for "You Belong to Me," "What a Fool Believes," "Minute By Minute," "Takin' It To the Streets," and "Sweet Freedom," with its extended instrumental that further showed off the band.

"I hope you remember this one. I hope we remember," he said as an introduction to "I Keep Forgettin."

McDonald, a king of cover songs in his ability to make them his own, included Motown classics such as "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing." Each song instantly brought the crowd to its feet. Two of his albums the last decade were Motown tributes.

"You Don't Know Me" paid homage to Ray Charles and Eddy Arnold simultaneously, while "Love T.K.O." remembered Teddy Pendergrass, who died earlier this year.

St. Louis jazz singer Denise Thimes performed unannounced, aiding McDonald on the Stylistics slow jam classic "Stop, Look, Listen (to Your Heart)," and the two nearly seemed equally in awe of each other. McDonald said Thimes was as elegant and soulful as it gets, "all at the same time," and he was right.

He wanted to make sure the music sounded as good to the audience as it did to him, and joked music "can be like sex. I'm the only one enjoying it." But that wasn't the situation here.

McDonald, in fine voice and greatly assisted by his band, worked hard, evidenced by his blue denim shirt, soaked by the time he got to "Hallelujah" near show's end.

Steve Scorfina, an old friend of McDonald's, opened. His band had a ragtag kind of feel to it, but was full of classic charm on songs such as "I Can Still Dream," "Angeline," and more songs that were often St. Louis-specific. Scorfina is also known for his time spent with the band Pavlov's Dog.