Big Takeover - Issue 45
By Jack Rabid

Thanks to Chris Wales for transcribing

Guided by Voices
Bowery Ballroom, July 23; Roseland, Sept. 15

True to recent form, the later-'90s live GBV is big
hit or total miss. This time the total debacle was at
Bowery Ballroom, a diligent backing being rendered
impotent by an inexcusable, insufferable exhibition of
wretchedly D.O.A. (drunk-on-arrival) Robert Pollard.
Mr. P, you may consume mass quantities all you like on
stage, but getting tanked prior to performing, and
wobbling around the stage like a worn-out Weeble
singing singing wildly off-key is a luxury a
melody-driven group like yours cannot sustain. You
killed your own songs as asuredly as if you'd taken
out a machete and ripped their heads off. As for the
crowd, which lapped it up with welcoming roars like it
was some kind of frat-soaked burlesque show, I pity
them, too, like I do those who think cockfighting is a
competitive sport, or those who prefer hockey brawls
to goals, or those who think Led Zeppelin's drummer's
death by extreme intoxication is somehow romantic
instead of miserable. True, we all got a big
belly-laugh out of Pollard unintentionally ending a
number mid-song, by falling backwards and knocking
over the entire drum set (you can picture it). But
this sad show deserved apology.
Sure enough, Pollard made one at Roseland (if
hilariously backhanded, saying he was deeply "sorry
that ... I'm not as fucked up as I was last time."),
not only with a speech blaming his love of New York
bars as the cause of his bad boozin', but with his
sober bearing, the spring in his step, and his perfect
tunefulness. Hitting all the notes this time, with the
panache he used to always have five years prior, he
and his latest GBV wowed a crowd of a few thousand as
partisan for them as for headliners Cheap Trick. His
group was tight and crisp like new Corn Flakes, even
without missed star bassist Greg Demos, only this
Pollard's throaty vocal hooks make an appearance, the
"power" in power-pop as much as Jim McPherson's
merciless drumming. Excellent.