Musician John Rush is known as the “Human iPod.” He has more than 75 hours of music memorized in his head. For his performances, he brings along copies of a large black book and in it, he has hundreds of songs. These songs range from classic old school rock to recent pop songs.

Rush performed at Pace last Thursday night in the Boudreau Lounge and while at first he lacked large enough group to call an audience, within a half an hour stormed a group of students.

“I like small shows better because it seems like you are just sitting down in your living room hanging out,” said Rush.

Rush has been Campus Musician of the Year, Campus Entertainer of the Year, and Coffeehouse Act of the Year. He has played alongside artists such as The Dixie Chicks and Matchbox 20 and has opened shows for Edwin McCain and Howie Day.

Maintaining an amicable environment, he made the performance extremely inclusive by asking audience members to choose a song for him to sing from his big black book. The audience would go up to the book and write down the song on a post-it and throw it on stage for the musician to choose.

Rush was so interactive with the audience that he threw a microphone across the audience for one student, Earna, to help him sing Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty.

The guitarist also took time in between each song to create conversation. While he played various styles of guitar solos, he explained the difference between artists such as Jimmy Hendrix, Eddie Van Hallen and many more. He even taught the crowed about the guitar and his performance process.

“Every song is being sung live,” said Rush.

Rush has recorded all the notes that he needs for the songs that he plays with different instruments such as bass, harmonica, piano, and sax.

Rush says that he worked hard to achieve the musical ability that he has now. Though seemingly relaxed and confident on the stage, when he was younger Rush said that he “could not play bar chords.”

“Singing and playing the guitar was also really hard,” Rush said. “But as I got more comfortable, I learned that you just need to let go of the guitar and sing. That helped a lot.”