Now Weekly Toronto Review

Now Weekly (Toronto)
By Matt Galloway

Thanks to Sean Palmerston

Subject: 09/28 GbV live review from Now Weekly (Toronto)

GUIDED BY VOICES, at Lee's Palace, September 28. Tickets: $16. Attendance:
400. Rating: 4 out of 5

Guided by Voices drunk 'n' orderly

You don't go to a Guided by Voices show for a polished example of rock
professionalism, but even those familiar with the Ohio quintet's unhinged
antics had to be surprised when Thursday's Lee's Palace set fell apart
before it even got going.

With a guitar amp fried, it seemed dicey whether GBV would ever get out of
the blocks. No need to panic, though. While technicians scurried around, the
15-minute delay just gave singer Robert Pollard a chance to pound back three
more beers and talk trash about Lou Barlow and Wayne Coyne.

Any rumours that Guided by Voices had somehow cleaned up in the wake of
their Ric Ocasek-produced Do The Collapse disc were squashed immediately.
With five cases of beer and a bottle of bourbon to share between five
people, and 30 or so song titles scribbled on a 2-by-4-inch piece of scrap
paper, Pollard and crew were in vintage apocalyptic form.

As the singer called out song titles and their album affiliations like an
auctioneer, his well-oiled band, including Toronto stick handler Jon McCann
flailing away impressively, bashed through two and a half hours of music for
a roomful of people who knew every word to every 70-second song. Diversions
through Baba O'Riley and Sabbath's Paranoid -- touchingly retitled Finished
With My Woman -- were spot-on, and the quintet inexplicably got tighter the
longer the set wore on and the emptier the shelf of beer became.

In fact, Pollard seemed to become more coherent the more he drank.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for bassist Tim Tobias and
guitarist Nate Farley, who appeared on the verge of a coma but still managed
to hit all the right notes.

Anything less would have been disappointing.