By: Julia Kazar On Thursday night David Gerrard played an intimate show upstairs at Annabell’s in Akron. It was nice to have such a small show because it allowed Gerrard to personally interact with everyone in the audience. He not only took requests from them, but he also was able to carry on conversations with them and make them feel like they were part of the show. Throughout the night Gerrard played a number of different songs, most of them were covers of other artists’ original songs but he did throw in a few that he had written himself too. Between songs he took the time to introduce every song and even to tell a little back story behind why he plays it, or how it was written in the first place. One such example of this was when he was getting ready to perform Neil Young’s “A Man Needs a Maid” he talked for a few minutes about how when Young is writing a song he likes to disappear by himself for a while, and just completely trash a place until he can’t use it anymore and that was loosely the inspiration behind this song. Later in the night, when Cleveland and Akron got the news that LeBron was officially leaving Cleveland one particularly upset audience member specifically requested that Gerrard play some angry music to match the general feelings of almost everyone in attendance that night. Gerrard eventually decided that Barry McGuire’s song “Eve of Destruction” best fit the mood. “I don’t really have any angry songs, I’m not an angry guy, but we’ll make this one work” he said before starting the song. Soon the whole audience was into it, singing along and trying to fit some of the lyrics to the situation with LeBron. It didn’t really work that well, but everyone still had fun trying and it helped to get some of their frustration out. One of the original songs Gerrard did during his set was called “Addiction” which he explained was about a long relationship that had ended, and even though it was over there is still a need to see that person or talk to them sometimes. It was a really pretty acoustic song that Gerrard had only played once before in public. Gerrard is definitely a very talented song writer; however his true strengths lie with covering other artists’ songs. He has found a way to make them sound just as good as they did originally but still change them enough so that they are Gerrard’s songs. A few of the covers that stood out on Thursday included “Vincent” by Don McLean, “In the Ghetto” by Elvis and “Cowgirl in the Sand” by Neil Young. David Gerrard put on a great acoustic show at Annabell’s last night, and if you ever have to opportunity to see him perform live take it because it is sure to be a great show full of folk song covers and a few originals thrown in too.