Rocky Votolato House Show

Since I am unable to broadcast my show due to technical issues (again!) with Nicecast, I decided to do a show review. Last night a friend and I attended the last stop on Seattle, Washington’s Rocky Votolato’s Living Room/House show tour. Basically, he put out a bunch of dates on his website a few months ago asking if anyone would be interested in hosting him playing in their very own home/apartment/garage/etc. He managed to pull off a 23 day tour by driving around in a car with his wife, playing in people’s homes. They released a certain amount of tickets, and once the location was finalized an email was sent out to all ticket holders with the address. Not knowing what to expect, a friend and I arrived at the house show last night to a room full of people sitting in lawn chairs, sipping on beer and wine awaiting to her some of Rocky Votolato’s tunes. After a couple minutes of waiting, Rocky walked in, tuned his guitar, and dove into an hour long set consisting of a lot of new songs which will be released on his February 23rd full length entitled, “True Devotion,” which will be released via Barsuk Records. He also played a few oldies, a Cat Stevens cover, and two fan requests. The whole evening went off without a hitch, and it got me thinking, why aren’t there more shows/artists like this? The whole DIY tour model is not only a brilliant idea, but it breaks the barrier of service charges on tickets and other hassles and nonsense generally associated with going to see a show. For people to allow complete strangers into their home just to listen to music, is something you wouldn’t expect to happen in our oddball, crazy world today. Without sounding overly sentimental, it was truly a beautiful thing. It was so moving to find out that there are still people out there who like music simply because they like music, not because Pitchfork gave it a certain review. It was also refreshing to know that musicians like Rocky Votolato are still in it for all of the right reasons, and I urge you to check this man’s music out if you haven’t already. He is the real deal.

http://www.rockyvotolato.com