Bloomington residents, IU students, and old and current roommates welcomed IU senior Kacie Swierk at the Venue Fine Arts and Gifts to play guitar for Bloomington Unplugged.
David Colman, assistant to the curator, said the Venue is host to Bloomington Unplugged every first Tuesday of the month. The Venue has been doing this for the past four years.
Colman said the process of inviting a performer to their Bloomington Unplugged event is typically a two-way street and sometimes the musician contacts them asking to play for the events.
“If I hear somebody or see somebody that I particularly enjoy, I’ll invite them to perform, and she sent us a CD and asked if she could perform, and we said yes,” Colman said.
Swierk began her show at Bloomington Unplugged with “Bonfire Blues,” song performed with a strong voice that filled the intimate setting around the audience. A common theme throughout her music was goodbyes and letting things go, and she introduced each song by telling audiences about the meaning..
Swierk said she has a hard time categorizing her music into one genre but said her performance was all acoustic and would fall under folk.
She is of Irish heritage from her mother’s side.
“Before I started playing music I wasn’t really huge into roots and heritage and stuff, but now that I’ve gotten more of a sound and background I’m like, ‘oh this is really interesting,’” Swierk said.
Along with telling personal anecdotes, Swierk also interacted with the audience with light hearted jokes about her set list.
“I’m just going to run a bunch of originals together, and eventually I’ll throw in a cover, so just holler if it becomes unbearable,” Swierk said.
Comfortable with the audience, Swierk encouraged the members to sing along with part of her cover of John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change” and parts of the Beatles “Let it Be.” When it came to the choruses, Swierk’s roommates took the first step by leading everyone to sing along.
Swierk said she has been involved in music since she was young. She said she considers piano to be her main instrument, but for events like Bloomington Unplugged she plays her guitar.
Swierk is originally from Chicago but came to Bloomington for school in 2013. She took a break during her education and moved out to Seattle.
Swierk said when she was in Seattle, she was dealing with chronic illness, and and she turned to music as an outlet.
“Piano had always been my outlet to have a safe space emotion wise,” Swierk said. “I didn’t have a piano anymore out there. I just had my guitar, and it basically came naturally.”
During this time Swierk said she had a lot to say. Swierk was just playing for her happiness before thinking she should perform.
“Before performance came in mind, it was just a do it for me type of thing,” Swierk said.
During Swierk’s performance, Colman clapped along. Colman said what he enjoys about Bloomington Unplugged is how the Venue is different from other locations.
“My favorite part is that you can hear these performers in other places, but they tend to be clubs and bars,” Colman said. “What we do is set it up here so that we have a tentative audience and the performers get a chance to play uninterrupted.”
