Guided by Voices rally at home-state tour opener

I could have just waited until May. Guided by Voices planned a Denver show, the first since I moved to Colorado. 

But Robert Pollard and Company chose to kick off their 13-date 2024 tour in Columbus the Friday before the eclipse. I already leaned toward driving back to the capital city, but the chance the go with my old concert buddies Mike and Ron while also getting my old friend Jeff to his first GBV show sealed the deal. 

Across three decades, I have never seen Guided by Voices in the same venue twice. This time they landed at the Columbus Anthaneum, a spectacular ballroom in a former Masonic Temple. The stone staircases and wooden handrails in the stairs spoke to its 19th century construction. The ballroom has a general admission floor and seats on either side. For a GBV, it fit like a glove even if it never felt close to selling out. 

 Opening band The Laughing Chimes came from Athens, Ohio, and their set leaned heavily on songs influenced by Joy Division and early REM. 

We didn't have to wait long for GBV. They kicked off with a old tune - My Impression Now from Fast Japanese Spin Cycle - and gave us all-time classic Motor Away by the 10-minute mark. The show would not let up from there. 

GBV layered in many songs from Nowhere to Go but Up, its latest record and third released in 2023. The sheer volume of releases means I rarely buy more than one a year, but I choose with with Nowhere to Go but Up. I have listened to The Race is On, the King is Dead enough to sing along and have people in the crowd stare when I did. 

Since the band tours more irregularly these days, all five songs from Nowhere to Go but Up were live debuts since they had not played live in a while. As usual, the show cut across their entire career – while Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes got three songs apiece, a whopping 24 albums were represented onstage, most by a single song. 

 For once, a GBV seemed to touch on a wide variety of tones, such as dropping the slow-burning Volcano from Surrender your Poppy Field among the peppier rock songs. A single Pollard solo track, Love is Stronger than Witchcraft, also broke things up. 

Pollard’s banter was a little more erratic, talking about Columbus as a good town for GBV (just an hour from the band’s homebase in Dayton). But then he railed against the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a handful of inductees (Jon Bon Jovi and Dolly Parton) before admitting GBV wasn’t getting in, even as the band celebrated 40 years in 2023. 

Still, the music never wavered, and Pollard’s drunken mumblings between songs never carried into the songs, his delivery crisp and nonsensical as ever. His much-younger bandmates found a comfortable groove then stayed there. The six-song encore was a GBV show in miniature, starting with longtime opener A Salty Salute - known for its anthemic shout "The club is open" - and wrapping up with Glad Girls, a fan favorite and frequent show-ender. 

Between those two, GBV found time for live favorite Shocker in Gloomtown and the anthemic Rally Boys I wonder how much longer GBV might tour. Pollard seems robust in his late 60s and his younger bandmates probably provide needed energy. The man consumed a cooler of Miller Lite bottles as during their 42-song marathon. 

If they are slowing down, at least Guided by Voices' live shows can still reach the heights they have long occupied.