Boston MA show review

RollingStone.com
ARI VAIS October 20, 1999

Meet the new Bob, sorta the same as the old Bob

Guided by Voices kicked off their set at Boston's Avalon Ballroom with "Don't Stop Now," an especially chiming track from 1996's Under the Bushes Under the Stars. It's one of their most beautiful songs, and it made for a fitting start to a mid-September evening at this newly remodeled venue. A longtime Boston fixture, the Avalon had always been a dark warehouse of a club, and tonight was unveiled a true ballroom, complete with chandeliers and plenty of red velvet -- a real class act.

Flanked by the same new group of GbVers that appear on the band's latest, Ric Ocasek-produced Do the Collapse (Doug Gillard of Cobra Verde, Nate Farley and Jim MacPherson of the Breeders, and Tim Tobias of Gem, Bob Pollard was vintage Bob Pollard. Those who had seen the pride of Dayton, Ohio, before got what they came for: that trademark voice, seemingly unaffected by years of drink and smoke; that genuinely manic stage persona, complete with karate kicks, microphone swinging and Van Morrison-esque poses; and, most of all, those stellar songs. You can argue that his writing was stronger while still paired up with guitarist and singer/songwriter Tobin Sprout, now gone solo, but not one offering during this set lacked -- at the very least -- one truly great hook.

Of the twenty-five songs comfortably churned out in ninety minutes, nine were from Collapse, and one number, "And I Don't (So Now I Do)," was a new composition. About as many were 'classic' GbV tunes, like the Pavement-meets-Georgia-Satellites "Bulldog Skin" and Pollard's personal favorite, "Hot Freaks." A sprinkling of more obscure numbers from the band's back catalog of more than 1,000 songs filled out the rambunctious set. The capacity crowd did not seem to differentiate, except on one occasion -- toward the end of the show, a fan caught Pollard's ear with a request for the haunting "Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory," from Bee Thousand. Pollard acknowledged the request, tried to sing a few bars a cappella, asked the band if they knew it (they didn't), and instead, played the new "Picture Me Big Time," insisting that "it's just as good" (it wasn't). On that, and other occasions, it was clear (if not painfully clear) that this was not the legendary Guided by Voices of Matador or Scat Records yore, but rather the inimitable Robert Pollard with another pick-up band.

Indeed, when he parted ways with longtime bandmates Sprout, Mitch Mitchell and Don Thrasher several years ago, Pollard lost the odd-ball, lo-fi minute-long tunes that, to many, made his band one-of-a-kind. In their place came bigger, longer and more conventional songs, ones you can crank up and rock out to. Songs with great production values, repeated choruses, maybe a guitar solo. Pollard's own material, like the arena rock that he so clearly admires, has become more mainstream. Hearing the new songs live, one just hopes that GbV will evolve in the manner of American indie-pop elder statesman like R.E.M., Pavement, the Replacements and the Pixies, and not grow into some bland, cookie cutter band. Thankfully, Pollard's on-stage banter is anything but mainstream, consisting almost entirely of requests for more beer, whiskey and cigarettes, and was delivered in a Bill Clinton-esque drawl. Taken together, it's still a pretty damn compelling package.

Cheap Trick, the evening's headliner, didn't come close to compelling, despite being repeatedly heralded by Pollard. Certainly, they rocked. Robin Zander's voice sounded as great as ever, and Rick Nielsen, with a new, more outlandish guitar for every song, was a lot of fun to watch (while Zander, inexplicably, had all the stage presence of a chair). When they played the hits, everyone in the place bobbed their heads in unison. Unlike the revamped GBV, the band sounded like they've been together for more than twenty years, which they have, but the material, song for song, was nothing to write home about. It was a revelation that highlighted Guided by Voices' idiosyncratic vision all the more.