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Guided by Voices Live at The Metro in Chicago June 12, 1997
 
By Mo Ryan
Special to the Tribune
 
What's the point? That's the question everyone asks, in the back of their minds, every single day. Thursday night at Metro, Guided by Voices attempted to provide an answer.
 
"Mag Earwhig," their latest record, purports to be a concept record about a mundane earwig, a commonplace insect, who eventually finds a way to transcend its infinitesimal existence. As concepts go, it's faintly way-out stuff, but at their powerhouse live show, the GBV members proved that such fantasies are within the grasp of even the most pedestrian dreamers.
 
After all, who would have expected that this band, led by an ex-schoolteacher from Dayton, would find the kind of rock-star status that most 12-year-old air guitarists dream about? After years of putting out homemade records that were ignored by all but the most committed rock fans, a few years ago the band broke through to semi-mainstream success with the indelible melodies and high-octane British-invasion-style pop of records like "Bee Thousand" and "Alien Lanes."
 
But it was a different Guided by Voices that invaded the Metro. Frontman Robert Pollard has a brand-new backing band, the members of Cleveland's dangerous glam-rock band Cobra Verde, and it has made all the difference on both the new record and in GBV's live show.
 
Not that the old band didn't rock. They executed addictive pop songs such as "Game of Pricks" and "Motor Away" quite well, but they never really explored the tunes' full potential. The new GBV, with guitarists Doug Gillard and John Petkovic slashing through every song with heedless conviction, weren't afraid to take interesting chances with riffs, and they didn't shy from making Pollard's sterling creations the arena-rock anthems they were always meant to be.
 
With Petkovic stalking the stage like a caged animal, Gillard embroidering the songs with urgent, plaintive guitar lines and Pollard swinging the microphone cord like an energetic Roger Daltrey, songs like "Little Lies" and "Jane of the Waking Universe" transformed the Metro into the world's smallest stadium. But it wasn't just the guitars that made GBV's set an arena-rock show: The elastic bass of Don Depew recalled The Who classics such as "I Can See For Miles," and drummer Dave Swanson pummeled his kit with precise, ferocious abandon.
 
But Guided by Voices isn't a cover band. They may have echoed the Stones with the slanging, supple riffs of "Bulldog Skin" and recalled The Who on rock opuses such as "Sad If I Lost It," but they truly came into their own with addictive power anthems like "Smothered in Hugs" and "Postal Blowfish," tunes that sound like the simplest garage rock but which actually are the product of the irrepressible, impressive jukebox that is Robert Pollard's brain.
 
Songs so direct and so viscerally delivered are enough to make even a jaded music fan -- even a sad earwig -- believe in the redemptive power of rock.