The Revival Tour - Clwb Ifor Bach - October 16th The last time we went to the Revival Tour we experienced one hell of a line up which featured Chuck Ragan, Dan Andriano, Brian Fallon, Dave Hause who all took to the stage to show us a night of acoustic goodness. This year, Chuck Ragan has taken the Revival Tour torch by taking to the road with a bunch of other extremely talented acoustic folk such as Jay Malinowski, Emily Barker, Cory Branan, Rocky Votolato. Now, I'm sure we said something similar last year, but we will indeed tell you this again, this tour is very different to anything you've seen before, you never know what songs are going to be played, audience requests are pretty much always accepted by the acts, and also you will always see the acts collaborating with each other live, which in short makes a very exciting atmosphere to be in for sure. Getting the night started in style is none other than Emily Barker who does a perfect job at reducing the audience talk to 0% because basically, everyone is hooked from the first track. Her echoing vocals bounce of the walls, and her unique style of folk music is really cool to check out. She even has a backing violinist to accompany her on stage which enhances an already brilliant set to show off exactly what Emily is capable of. Iif this act is in town again, then please make sure you don't miss out!
Rocky Votolato takes to the stage to share his incredible mix of punk/folk and acoustic awesomeness with the crowd. Every track he showcases is instantly memorable, as the set continues we even see Chuck Ragan take to the stage for a collaboration on the incredible track Fools Gold, which went down an absolute treat. Just like we said earlier, anything can happen, and when it does, it really is fantastic to witness, and collaborations like this, will keep us coming to the revival tour for well...as long as it goes on for!
Cory Branan is such an awesome act to see live, his confidence on stage is so impressive and every song
is completely mesmerising to watch. We must make another note towards the crowd on this performance, because with Cory on some of his tracks the music would be so stripped back that at times you could easily hear anything else in the venue, even the slightest movement! So to have an audience, that were totally silent throughout the whole of tonights performances was really awesome for us, and it really did add bucket loads e more to the already electric and respectable environment. As Branan continued his set he made a brilliant effort to make sure that the crowd was completely glued to what he was doing. It was a brilliant performance. I guess that most people will know Jay Malinowski for his lead role in the brilliant Bedouin Soundclash, but if you read his interview in the last issue of Stencil Mag then you would know that tonight Jay was here to showcase the solo side of career. He showcased a lot of music from his fantastic new album 'Bright Lights And Bruises' which was just fantastic to witness live. Our personal highlight from tonights set would be 'There's A Light' which simply just knocked us of our feet. Also to top an already epic performance Malinowski would occasionally take to the piano on some tracks to show off his extremely talented range as a musician, perfect. Just like Jay, Chuck Ragan was also in the last issue of Stencil Mag, and in that issue Chuck went into a lot of depth about everything that was going on with him right now, from Hot Water Music, to life at home, and also of course his solo career. If you managed to check out this interview then you will know that Chuck is so committed to what he does, and that music is something that will always be a part of his life. So when you see an act like Chuck Ragan live it's always inspiring to see not just how good he is as a musician, but to also see how much he actually loves what he does for a living. As always Chuck does his best at making sure the spectators are having the best time possible. We got spoilt to a back catalogue of delightful tracks such as Nomad By Fate, Meet Me In The Middle, Nothing Left To Prove which are all just simply epic to see live. To add to his solo performance we cannot forget that Chuck is also joined by Joe Ginsberg and Jon Gaunt who are both perfect additions to tonights set up, so with an incredible backing and the unique Ragan combined this was in short just incredible to watch. As the set came to a close the whole of tonights line up decided to come out to sing a couple of tracks live for us, which was just so powerful to see, and as they sang one of our personal highlights of the evening 'Take A Bow' we decided that this part of the set was sort of the icing to the cake, as tonight has just been full to brim with great tunes and sing alongs and with the addition of this outstanding collaboration it made tonight much more than just a 'perfect gig' and more of a night that we will never forget! So to conclude this show has easily achieved a 10 out of 10 rating from us...so whatever you do, if The Revival Tour comes back to the UK next year, and if you have not attended before, then please make sure you don't miss out! AD