Guided By Voices Live at the Cotton Club, Atlanta GA 9/08/99

I had been warned, but I wasn’t ready.  I have a friend who lives in Indianapolis, much, much closer to GBV’s earth centre of Dayton, Ohio, who had warned me that GBV were a live band to be reckoned with.  I’d already pronounced Do The Collapse album of the year in an earlier review, but I wasn’t ready.

Waiting for a friend in front of the Cotton Club for 45 minutes before the doors opened was the first clue.  The kids were out in force. Lots of young men with glasses and obscure-band t-shirts.  Fewer cool chicks in all manner of cool outfits.  We appeared to be at the strange nexus of some ultra-slacker convention.

Tired opener Elf Power finished at 10:30p.m.  As soon as they had removed their battered, indie-cred approved equipment, most of GBV were on stage setting up their own amps and drums.  They appeared to have one roadie, and he honestly looked like he was someone’s dad, and he wasn’t doing much.  Ten minutes later, the hallowed Blue Beer Cooler was placed upon the drum riser, and the lights went out.

At 10:45 p.m., the neon “The Club Is Open” sign came on, and GBV took the stage.  They ripped through a bewildering number of songs, with almost no pretense or artifice, and this is rock and roll we’re talking about.  By that I mean whole rock and roll careers are built on pretense, and this band had almost none.  But Christ did they rock.

Drummer Jim McPherson was a sturdy slammer of tubs.  He was both propulsive and ear-shattering, driving the band as smoothly as an English butler in a Rolls-Royce.  Guitarist extraordinaire Doug Gillard was the true secret weapon, looking like one of Lou Reed’s Rock N’ Roll Animal era cronies, his two Les Pauls and Boogie half-stack did all the talking, a melodic, snarling musical hybrid of George Harrison and Pete Townsend.

Of the other two GBV musicians, bassist Tim Tobias was solid and unspectacular, mugging it up quite a bit, as did young Nate Farley, rhythm guitarist and drinker of Jack-Straight-From-The-Bottle. He could barely stand by the end, but of course, so could we.

Seeing King Of Rock Bob Pollard in the flesh was a true revelation.

The man is so cool it’s hard to believe.  There he was, belting out each tune, right thumb over microphone, left wrist flapping with cigarette.  When not singing, he worked a number of funny kung-fu kicks, and he worked the Budweisers.

This band is what rock is all about.  A crowded club, crazy kids, smoke, sweat, beer, liquor, rock.  I felt like I was at the Cavern Club back in the day, or seeing the early Who.  They rocked, they drank, they smoked. Bob got cigarettes from the kids. He got a light from the kids. They gave him a Pete’s Wicked Ale. Later he passed Budweisers out to them. The kids passed him little slips of paper with requests written on them, like this was some wedding band.  They politely waited until the very end to take his two-page set list.     

They played the bulk of Do The Collapse, a handful of new songs, a Kid Marine song, a couple of Lexo and the Leapers tunes, and a lot of older stuff.  Three songs from Mag Earwhig!, including Gillard’s fabulous “I Am A Tree”.  What amazed me was how much the kids knew of their older stuff (more than I did), Alien Lanes “A Salty Salute”, “Motor Away” and “Game Of Pricks” all were anthems that all the kids sang every word to.

Material from Bee Thousand drove the kids nuts, “Hot Freaks”, “Tractor Rape Chain”, “Smothered In Hugs”, and “I Am A Scientist” brought em’ to apoplexic heights.   And there were so many other songs that just slayed them, titles like “Cut-Out Witch”, “Far Out Crops”, “Submarine Teams”, and “Postal Blowfish”.  One after another Pollard rolled them out, and his band killed. Killed killed killed.  This is not the weak delivery system of the lo-fi album.  This is a band that can rock with razor blade power and precision, and Bob Pollard can sing like your greatest singing hero.

They played something like five encores.  The last two or three they came out on stage AFTER the house lights were on and the club music was playing.  They didn’t care, they wanted to rock some more.  They outlasted many of the kids.  By the end, young Nate was almost comatose from his Jack bottle, and the old grunt Pollard was somewhat sloppy, dropping his mike and standing somewhat unsteadily.  At the end, the Blue Beer Cooler was removed to backstage, and the show was really over.

I wasn’t ready for a band to rock this good.  I wasn’t ready for the kids to love them so much, I felt as if I’d crashed some youth party where I didn’t belong.  Then I saw the band and realized I wasn’t nearly as old as they are.  It was so refreshing to see a band with no tricks, gimmicks, pyros, lighting, props, DJ’s, etc. etc.  They came and they rocked the old-school way.