The Guardian

Tonight, however, Pollard's all-new Voices buff his multifarious repertoire
until it gleams. It is a somewhat restrained set by normal GBV standards,
featuring just 35 songs (the record is around the 50 mark), Pollard briefly
pondering his age-old dilemma regarding which of his five new albums to
promote, then making a valiant attempt to squeeze all of them, and most of
the two dozen or so that preceded them, into an hour and three quarters.
Some musicians are addicted to beer, or drugs, or sex; Pollard is addicted
to dishevelled two-minute psychedelia. And he likes his beer.

Songs are dispatched, as always, like machinegun pellets, with
fortysomething ex-schoolteacher Pollard imbibing a Budweiser for every four
of them (restrained, again, by normal standards), and pouting and saluting
like a teenage Paul Rodgers wannabe practising in front of the bedroom
mirror in middle America.

No sooner has Motor Away galloped past in its Pete Townshend pomp, here is
Hot Freaks emerging in the cloud of dust it left behind, revamping Peter
Gabriel-era Genesis as pithy, provocative glam rockers.

The aura is that of the world's greatest stadium rock band performing for
the hard of attention-span, and you can't help thinking that, somewhere,
deep down, Pollard has had all this planned since about 1983. From the
cunningly manufactured chant of "G-B-V! G-B-V!" - a myth devised by the GBV
leader on 1992's Propellor and carried out faithfully by his fans at every
show since - to his thousand song-plus back catalogue and his super-cheesy
crack at mainstream balladry, Hold On Hope, Pollard has been living out a
rock god fantasy all of his own. For years it has been a bit of play-acting
that a select few of us have indulged him with, but this evening saw it
turning rapaciously into reality.