| Home | Fading Captain Series | GBV News | The Band | The Music | The Critics & Fans | Merchandise | Other Stuff |

LA Times
By Natalie Nichols

Prolific alt-rock group Guided by Voices seemed nearly unstoppable at the Roxy on Friday, as frontman Robert Pollard led the band through song after song from its nearly 15-year career. The momentum was still building after 90 minutes, and the singer kept promising more to his enthusiastic fans.

But then an audience member clambered out of the crowd, leaped off the stage and crashed to the dance floor, requiring emergency medical attention and immediately ending the concert. There wasn't even a mosh pit, but perhaps the young man was confused by the unabashed arena-rock flourishes in songs from the Dayton, Ohio-based group's current album, "Do the Collapse." These tunes shared a melodicbuzz 'n' drone with earlier GBV works but were writ larger than life, evoking the towering pop of such icons as the Who and Cheap Trick.

Delivering his minimal, affecting lyrics with emotional conviction, Pollard punctuated them with emphatic kung-fu kicks and saucy microphonswings that conjured up a slightly ironic Roger Daltrey. The fans were delighted, and the players fed off their energy, bumming cigarettes, quaffing drinks and expertly spinning out an apparently endless supply of two-minute gems from numerous GBV albums and side projects. They had the material and the chops to take the show anywhere, so how disappointing that it had to stop just when things were really getting started.