Gijsbert Kamer, Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper)
Guided By Voices, Paradiso, Amsterdam, August 31

Lessons in Rock ‘n’ roll by Guided By Voices

Thanks to Arjan Domhof and Jos Witsenburg (www.fluxury.nl) for translations!

It’s been more than five years since guitarband Guided By Voices’ played in Holland and in this period, American rock’n’roll found itself a new face. The new heroes are called the Strokes and the White Stripes and they reinvented rock ‘n’ roll for the 1000^th time, convincingly showing us that nothing is more fun than playing in a band.

If you see Guided By Voices play you just wanna start a band to. Pollard, a friendly 40-ish guy, may have a drinkers-reputation, his energetic determination is impressive. Night after night he plays 2.5 hour sets stuffed with up to 50 songs selected from his oeuvre that contains hundreds of songs.

This is how it went down on Saturday in the oddly enough not sold-out Paradiso. ‘Hit after hit’ joked Pollard, who receives little or no airplay for his wonderful songs in the daytime. The songs from his cult-classics Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes and from his immensely under-appreciated Do The Collapse sound even more abashing than on the records. GBV outgrew the lo-fi stage from which it originally got its status years ago.

No self-absorbed lo-fi, but solid loud rock’n’roll, that’s what Guided By Voices stands for these days. Pollard made lasso-moves with his microphone like a Roger Daltrey and danced around on one leg, gushing a can of beer down his throat after each song. This was a lesson in rock’n’roll like nobody else could give. Including the ‘eleven song setlist’ Strokes. Cheers! Here’s to ‘eleven songs a week’ Bob.

Oddly, only after about ten songs did GBV gain full momentum and while the show progressed the audience’s enchantment grew and grew.

At the end of the show they played a Who and a Beatles song, a tribute to the two groups that were models for GBV. At the time they played these two covers they had proved beyond a doubt: Guided by voices is the best rock’n’roll band in the world. We never heard anybody sing A hard day’s night like Pollard did. But please, uncle Bob, don’t stay away for five years again, we need you here!