Cellar Sessions: Merritt Gibson - Area Code June 7th, 2018 City Winery New York

Merritt Gibson sits down for a One On One Session at City Winery New York on June 7th, 2018. Watch the full session here: https://youtu.be/6cUXgqtcIOs For more info visit: http://www.merrittgibson.com Audio & Video by: Ehud Lazin

Setlist:
I Heard
Area Code
When You Were Mine
Truth and Myth

George Bernard Shaw is often credited with the assertion that “youth is wasted on the young.” Merritt Gibson challenges this notion wholeheartedly and out loud.

When she found herself in a new school, in a new state, with new friends and relationships, she seized the opportunity to examine her life. This led to questions of identity, purpose, relationships and the future: the same questions every teenager faces. Songwriting was how she answered them.

Gibson recorded her debut Eyes On Us over the summer between her junior and senior year of high school with producer Mitch Dane at Sputnik Sound in Nashville. Gibson's original songs are brought to life by her confident and engaging vocal performance and genre-blending production.

“When You Were Mine” introduces the set of self-penned material with a charging anthem to a love that seems sweeter now that it’s gone. "Eyes On Us" follows with an upbeat vision of the excitement, frustration and uncertainty of an entrancing new relationship.

The set continues with tales of late night confidences ("Truth and Myth") and rollicking good times, sisterhood and freedom ("My Best Friends"), followed by a ballad of resisting, and then succumbing to, the pull of things long gone ("Memories") and a candy-coated look at living and learning about young love ("Lovesick").

The set then takes a deeper turn with the use of a dark metaphor for a crumbling relationship (“Cold War II"), a punchy put-down of betrayal and revenge (“I Heard”), a lonely and hypnotic cry of abandonment and need ("Ghost Town"), a feverish tale of obsession and rejection ("Burning Red Hot"), and a distant call in the night of plaintive, insistent, complex love ("Area Code"). The album closes with a lovely, lilting memory of a beautiful moment suspended in time ("Faraway").

Gibson is a musical and lyrical thinker, as well as a fun-loving, upbeat girl-next-door. Both innocent and vulnerable, witty and wise, her songs touch the specifics of time, place and experience while retaining their relatable and universal nature. Eyes On Us presents Gibson’s rich and wide-ranging take on life as a teenage girl in the 21st century.

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