I think I’m in love with Rocky Votolato. This is embarrassing, mostly because I’m not 14 and he’s not Pete Wentz, but it’s not really a hot-rock-star sort of crush anyway. It’s more like that scene in Wayne’s World where Cassandra’s playing the metal club, and when Wayne sees her things get all fuzzy and “Dream Weaver” plays overhead.
It might be the forearm tattoo. It might be the rugged, all-American boy good looks. But it definitely has something to do with that voice—slightly raspy, slow and soulful, and so honest and piercing that it makes your whole body reverberate. But maybe that’s just me.
Regardless, Rocky’s Friday night performance was everything a swooning girl (or just a fan of good music) could have hoped for. Openers Panda and Longhorne Slim prepped the crowd, and it became quite evident by the exodus after Longhorne Slim that many of the bespectacled hipsters and American Apparel-clad pretty girls that made up the crowd had not come for Rocky. Well it’s their loss.
Having seen Rocky a number of times in the last few years, I went into this with a pretty good idea of what to expect. But from the opening chords of “The Night’s Disguise,” from the album Makers, I was surprised. I’d read that Rocky’s latest album The Brag and Cuss was a departure from his usual singer/songwriter style and that it was more heavily influenced by his roots (he’s a Texan who grew up listening to Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson). But I wasn’t expecting the country twang to find its way into his older songs, too.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a pleasant surprise. I’ve enjoyed seeing Rocky perform in the past as mainly a solo artist, telling his stories through song in a voice unlike any I’d heard before. But the addition of the band—especially the pedal steel guitar player—filled out the songs that were so vocal-heavy before. Many of the songs performed came from The Brag and Cuss, including “Red Dragon Wishes,” “Lilly White,” “Before You Were Born” and “The Wrong Side of Reno,” where Rocky said they were heading for the three days following San Francisco’s show. A few of the songs included pedal steel and all contained heartbreaking stories of drunken nights and lost loves. The only songs Rocky played by himself, a la his Suicide Medicine tour, were a couple of tracks from that album, including a very Dashboard Confessional sort of sing-a-long to the title track.
My only disappointment was that he left out “Montana,” the song from Suicide Medicine which, when I heard it in his opening performance for The Get Up Kids in 2004, got me hooked. Call me a romantic, but when I hear him sing “Lord you'll know that you're the woman of a hard-working, guitar-picking man,” I feel like he’s singing them to me. Swoon.
Listen to and purchase The Brag and Cuss on Barsuk.com
Download “Postcard From Kentucky" from The Brag and Cuss – [mp3]