When one plays solo and acoustic, one occasionally employs onomatopoeia to recreate an electric guitar solo, as Leslie Mendelson did while performing “I Gotta Go.” 

“Why do I sound like a cat when I do that?” she said to laughter when the number from 2024’s Peter Asher-produced After the Party ended. 

Mendelson – and the crowd – were on stage at Newark, Ohio’s, Midland Theatre for her March 6 Stage Door Cabaret appearance on a makeshift bandstand facing 120 fans seated at 30 onstage tables for four. She reveled in the “different and unique” experience of playing in front of an exterior brick wall that held a fire extinguisher, an electrical box and other facility equipment and noted her mother was born in Newark, N.J.

“Aww, it’s like home,” Mendelson said before beginning the first of two sets – 40 and 50 minutes, respectively – with “The Good Life. Like “I Know a Lot of People but I Don’t Have Many Friends,” “The Good Life” represented Mendelson’s love for Willie Nelson and his fellow outlaws and found her playing Trigger-inspired licks as she made space for the audience to sing and whistle at her command. 

Later, she paid homage to “one of my favorite singers of all time,” native Ohioan Chrissie Hynde, and opened set No. 2 with “Don’t Get Me Wrong.”

Though Mendelson is not a folk artist, this show was 100 percent folk, as Mendelson interacted with the audience and regaled them with tales of touring with Roger Daltrey and offending a London audience by asking if they were tired of Beatles music.  

Clad in black pants with a red-and-black-striped top under her black blazer, Mendelson perched on a stool and accompanied herself on guitar and harmonica as she revisited her four-album discography and other cuts. To that end, Mendelson handled Jackson Browne’s parts in presenting their collaborative 2019 song “A Human Touch” and humorously imitated Bob Weir as she reprised their “Weir Here” duet on “Blue Bayou.”

She was a band unto herself on “Jericho,” coaxing rhythm and lead from her acoustic guitar with deft finger work and throwing her head back for extra vocal power on the chorus. Mendelson playfully flashed devil horns during “Rock and Roll on the Radio” and inserted a bit of the Foundations’ “Baby Now that I’ve Found You” in the middle of “I Know You Better than That” as she copped to lifting the chord progression of the former to create the latter. 

The sold-out audience happily sung harmony on the Bee Gee’s “To Love Somebody,” clapped along to “Easy Love” and gave a standing ovation after the show-closing “All Come Together.” 

As the audience exited, Mendelson was there by the stage door, thanking her fans for attending and adding to the house-concert feel of the beguiling theater performance.