When I think of women of rock, I think of electric guitars, Joan Jett and The Runaways. The 4th Annual Women of Rock Showcase, which was held at the Ames Public Library on Sunday, was not like that.

I should have figured out that there would be no electric guitars or anything overly loud since we were in a library. A lot of the audience consisted of middle aged people, with a few younger people and even a couple of children. People came and went all throughout the show, but there seemed to be around 50 people in the room most of the time.

One of the first performers I saw did no singing or instrument playing of any kind. It was a little confusing since I thought that this was strictly a musical showcase. She instead spoke of sexual abuse which caused a couple of the parents in the audience to remove their children from the premises.

When she had completed her speech, the crowd seemed almost stunned that this young woman had the courage to speak up about this subject. Uproarious applause followed quickly after. Since this event had a specified format in which every artist performed three pieces, this girl spoke two more times about the journey either she or some fictional character had taken. It was an inspiring story about finding yourself again after disaster strikes.

There was one other performer in the lineup that did not sing. Her name is Molly McDonald, and her poem about nuts was hilarious. The audience was at points unable to catch their breath as McDonald discussed her likes, dislikes and thoughts on various types of nuts. At one point, she even held up a Venn Diagram depicting things she liked on one side of the paper, and clear on the other side was the circle for Brazil nuts.

Elizabeth Zimmerman, Whitney Ferrara and Ursa Bones all played the showcase as well, along with a few others. Zimmerman covered a Joni Mitchell song while another woman covered Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” while playing the ukulele.

This was a very interesting showcase to watch, and not at all what I had pictured in my mind beforehand. I would recommend at least stepping in to see it next year because honestly, you really never know what you will hear from these fabulous ladies.