Rocky Rocks Burlington

Published October 1, 2007

By Alex Townsend

Rocky Votolato performed at Higher Ground last week. I’m guessing that’s something that will mean more to most of you out there than it did when I first heard about it. It turns out he’s pretty good, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The crowd wasn’t exactly huge that night. There were probably about thirty people in a room designed to hold a few hundred.

Still, despite all the room they had almost everyone was huddled closely around the stage. Silent. Waiting. Then the first opening act came out, receiving minor scatterings of applause.

They were called The Great Depression and boy was that an apt name. They were two men singing and playing on acoustic guitars and it seemed all their songs were about lost loves, abusive relationships, and being drunk and depressed. As for their quality, my notes on their performance go through several stages. First they are “light, country-ish, quiet,” which then transitions to “limited variety, interchangeable songs,” and finally becomes “Oh God, please don’t play anymore!” I was starting to understand the small turn-out.

Next up was a refreshing change of pace, a younger group called Portugal the Man. They were certainly far more loud and lively, playing rock music with hints of heavy metal. I couldn’t say if they were more or less talented than The Great Depression, their styles were so different, but Portugal the Man certainly livened the place up.

They had some interesting techniques, such as one song where they brought out some maracas and a tambourine. For the most part though, they didn’t seem like anything special. Their music was loud but generic, also repetitive and so overpowering that I had no idea what the singers were saying. Despite making the walls vibrate by the time they were done one guy behind me was starting to fall asleep.

During the break before Rocky came on I did a quick, informal survey of what some of the people thought. Surely they must have been feeling as bored and sarcastic as I was. To my surprise though, everyone I asked seemed to be really enjoying themselves. One girl even told me that she’d been so moved by The Great Depression that she’d started to cry. Weird. Was I just ignorant and unable to appreciate music that hadn’t been processed and packaged by a record company? I say no, because just then Rocky Votolato and his band began to play and I remembered what talent was.

They weren’t the best band I’d ever heard, but they were definitely worth having a concert for. Votolato’s style was a mix of acoustic and electric, but I’d say that he could be most solidly placed in the rock genre. Most importantly, though, he and his band just seemed to be having fun, not imparting depressing messages or trying to convey that they were more ‘hard-core’ than they were.

I got to speak to Votolato after the show and he confirmed what I’d thought. He wasn’t really trying to be the next god of rock ‘n roll; super fame would be a plus, but he was also happy where he was. “I do big concerts too, but it’s nice to go someplace like this where there’s only a few people. In a concert with a thousand people I can’t even see everyone.” So, for me the evening had its ups and downs, but for Rocky it was just an “Awesome time.”

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