. : : April 1st, 2013 : : .

Upon disbanding his band, Hot Water Music, Chuck Ragan decided to pursue a very different sort of solo career. Casting off the punk rock genre that had defined much of the previous thirteen years of music, he focused on dabbling in acoustic / folk music.

OK, maybe dabble isn’t the right word? What would you call it when someone creates a large travelling show of punk rock singers sharing the stage as they perform exclusively on acoustic instruments? As per Wikipedia, Ragan “conceptualized the idea of The Revival Tour, a collaborative acoustic event featuring several punk rock, bluegrass, and alt-country performers [to bring music] to people in an extremely honest and grassroots fashion.”

Knowing little about Ragan or the vast majority of his guests on the 2013 North America rendition of the tour, this is the kind of event that would normally fly by unseen on my radar. That is, except Ragan brought out a little old singer/songwriter by the name of Rocky Votolato on these dates.