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| Very blurry Guided by Voices |
Pollard, favorite son of Dayton, was full of quips through the tour-ending show at The Basement East in Nashville. When he mentioned their intent to push the three-hour mark, he brought up the marathon shows of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, known to push the four-hour mark.
“We’re not the boss. We’re the employees,” Pollard said. He is right. They played for a crowd of 200 people, nowhere close to a sellout, and the audience visibly thinned out in the show’s second hour. Aside from festivals, they never played for those Springsteen crowds even if Pollard handles an anthem with the skill of a 70s arena rock band.
They came to the stage with Telstar by The Tornados playing (the first British Invasion track to top the Billboard 100 and a track Pollard probably knows well). The entire band wore gold jackets that they would shed within a few songs.
At first, GBV leaned heavily on new record Space Gun. In the first hour, My Kind of Soldier, Cut-Out Witch and Motor Away were the few tracks from 2004 or earlier. Several numbers from double record August by Cake made the set, including 5 Degrees on the Inside and It’s Food.
In a 52-song set typical for GBV, the new songs are relative. People come for favorites and oddities like Shocker in Gloomtown, 87 seconds of buzzing perfection once covered by The Breeders.
If the lyrics are often nonsensical, the hooks are not. Even the new songs dig in and stay with the crowd. It’s not hard to envision an 80-year-old Pollard keeping up the same routine and pulling rarities from his endless well of songs. Even if the lyrics rarely shed their opacity, people sing along, especially to older songs, to the point that Pollard could stop singing and the crowd could carry on.
In a crowd likely peppered with Ohio transplants, Pollard joked about the band's newer location connection. He introduced guitarist Bobby Bare, Jr., a Nashville native who Pollard said never got nervous before shows. He also mentioned that Bare Jr. had been in GBV for two years, then pretended to turn threatening with a “Don’t push your luck, kid.”
Once the show crossed the 30-song mark and the low, plodding notes of A Salty Salute erupted, any question about classic GBV was answered. There were plenty of favorites to pick from as the songs clicked away. Mag Earwhig standouts I Am a Tree and Jane of the Waking Universe ran against the The Best of Jill Hives from Earthquake Glue.
After the new album song inventory slowed, it was all vintage GBV. The Goldheart Mountain Queen Directory and Gold Star for Robot Boy both shined as they always do. A sprinkling of non-GBV tracks came from Pollard side project Boston Spaceships and Pollard’s solo work, which is a little more straightforward lyrically but no less hooky.
After easily playing for two hours, they could have been excused for not pushing onward. But that wouldn't be Guided by Voices.
“Who’s ready for a 35-fucking-minute encore," Pollard shouted upon returned. Ten more songs followed, touching on his entire career. The band blistered the Basement East on their way out, ending with a one-two punch of Echoes Myron and Glad Girls.
Pollard ended the latter song by taking the “And we’re alright” chorus to his bandmates, himself then the audience with “And you’re all alright“ before a last wave and their departure. Telstar played again on the house stereo. In almost three hours between spins of that song, GBV demonstrated their debt to that song and their role in perfecting the three-minute rock song in the decades since.
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| Blurry GBV wearing gold jackets |
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