John Kappes Cleveland Plain Dealer 4/28/97
A POWERFUL PERFORMANCE BY 'NEW' BAND

As a live band, Dayton's Guided By Voices has always been Guided By Volume -and the triumphant debut of the "new" GBV Saturday night at Lakewood's Phantasy Theater was no different.

Formed by a treaty that united GBV's chief visionary and sole proprietor, Robert Pollard, with local heroes Cobra Verde, the new band still packed plenty of volume. But this time, volume didn't have to act as the universal solvent, filling all the holes in Pollard's skewed pop confections that live musicians (enhanced by beer and cigarettes) couldn't quite reach.

Instead, although guitarists Doug Gillard and John Petkovic prowled the stage like punk predators - and Pollard tossed his mike around as though the Who's Roger Daltrey had finally come down from his peroxide buzz - the watchword was precision.

Led by an understated push from bassist Don Depew, the band crackled through crowd-pleasing GBV classics such as "Game of Pricks" (from "Alien Lanes") and "I Am a Scientist" (from "Bee Thousand"), and offered a truly majestic take on the "Propeller" EP's "Weed King."

The real test, however, was the material from "Mag Earwhig!" that won't be released on Matador until next month. Could the new GBV, as Ed Kowalczyk of Live put it, sell the drama?

They covered about half of the new record, and there were a few missteps. "Little Lines" and "Choking Tara" came off ragged, and the crowd seemed a tad underwhelmed by the title track. But "Jane of the Waking Universe" showed the real strengths of the new lineup: The damaged psychedelia of the chorus was kept from smarminess by the dual barbed-wire guitars, and the whole pop structure barely had time to unfold before it was all over. Then there was "Bulldog Skin," which almost had one believing that 1978-era British postpunk could be The Next Big Thing.

There has been a lot of talk lately that alternative rock is dying, and the lackluster performances of a lot of slacker bands have done little to dispute that. But anyone who doubts that this kind of music can still signify something, can still conjure all the gut energy it had when Nirvana first played a club in Olympia, Wash., only had to hear GBV play "Sad If I Lost It" Saturday.
Like a forgotten gem from the Replacements at their peak, the song crystallizes reams of voiceless emotion into two minutes of pungent verse-chorus-verse.

If alternative is going to go down, fine. But with GBV, it's going to go down fighting.

The openers were a mixed bag. Power-pop legends John Wicks & the Records filtered their 1960s, Dave Clark Five sensibilities through 1970s Big Star and early 1980s Romantics, but were stopped somewhat short by strained harmonies and plodding rhythms.

Satan's Satellites at first seemed to be reaching for a marriage between punk-metal and B-52's keyboards that promised new ground. They settled instead for a kitschy but crowd-pleasing visit to a new wave beach movie, where the surf's always up and that Dick Dale twang opens every song. Trouble is, after about 20 minutes, you find yourself looking for the car keys.