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Guided By Voices—Farewell Show
The Metro
Filter Grade: 91%
by Tyler Wade | 01.01.2007

After witnessing the spectacle that was the Final GBV concert, the first two jokes from Annie Hall kept going through my head:

“Two elderly women are at a restaurant, and one of them says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such ... small portions.’”

And also:

"I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."

These represent the exact opposite of what I felt during the show. First off, the “food” was anything but terrible. Yeah, it was sloppy and drunken, but since when is that a bad thing when everyone is having so much fun. With over 60 songs played for nearly 4 hours, no one left with a sense that they were not getting every ounce of energy the band had to give, achieving “total heavyocity,” as Alvy Singer would say. No matter my level of self-loathing, the GBV club was accepting all memberships as indicated by the return of the famous neon greeting, “The Club is Open.” The band succeeded in convincing everyone in the audience they were not only part of the club but of the family. By the end of the show, I could not come up with another club I would rather join.

After passing a long line of ticket scalpers outside the venue, concertgoers quickly realized they were in for a major event, similar to a Home Depot Grand Opening or a Day After Christmas sale at Kmart. Before the band showed up, a large projector screen displayed several past moments to a synthesized version of “Window of My World” in an overtly cheesy tribute to the band’s history, and ended with the bittersweet epitaph “Guided by Voices 1983-2004.” Besides the regular, now famous onstage coolers of beer, which are always a major part of a GBV show, two buckets labeled “piss” and “puke” were placed nearby. If there was a “shit” bucket I could not see it. Due to the miracle of borderline alcoholism, the band managed to leave them empty for the whole show, although one was eventually used as a helmet. A bar, complete with bartender, was positioned near the band, which bandleader Bob Pollard made sure to point out would be visited often. He did not mislead anyone. While these props are new to the GBV show, they did not change the end result: a loud, drunken party, which also included a much needed break at Midnight for the band and crowd to finally be able to have a New Year’s drink. Pollard moved into his usual ranting and philosophizing, changing his “Dayton 19 Something and 5” from Selective Service to “Chicago, 2000 something and 5.” He also needed to explain that he had stopped smoking after 16 years, but had to start again for the last show as a great “do it for rock” gesture. Pollard even admitted that he made up with Lou Barlow in Los Angeles – a particularly significant event for him.

As the uber-GBV member, Pollard never gave up his vocal command except for the crowd to occasionally rock the mic but just long enough to pull a beer out of a cooler. Pollard performed with his usual rock star stage presence and energy that many of today’s younger performers have no sense of (I’m looking at you Frank Black or Flock of Seagulls guy) complete with scissor kicks, fist pumping, mic swirling, and an actual love of performing. Doug Gillard performed his role as the calming presence in the eye of the storm, laying down the tracks as if he were a real live professional (or something, albeit) while wearing a top hat. On the other end of the stage, you could say Nate Farley also played guitar but I’m convinced it was more a conceptual art exhibit comparable to a crazed rock zombie that could only feed on beer. Farley managed to keep up with Pollard’s energy and probably out drank just about everyone in the city.

The band’s past was embraced throughout the show, whether it was through the inclusion of songs from all eras of GBV or from the contributing performances from past members, such as Tobin Sprout and Greg Demos. Pollard’s brother Jim helped open the show with the classic “G-B-V!” chant, which flowed into Propeller’s “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox.” It wasn’t long before the rotating cast of past members came out for what seemed like at least half the band’s set. “14 Cheerleader Coldfront” featured Sprout on vocals and guitar while Demos came out for a powerful version of “I Drove a Tank.” Rock lover and band friend Beatle Bob reprised his role from the “My Kind of Soldier” video for some onstage dancing and also introduced the band for their encore moments, and at the end of show he emphasized the importance of the fans out there and how they had just witnessed “The greatest Pop group of all time.”

Most of the “rock” songs seemed to hit extra hard, such as “I am a Tree,” “Beg for a Wheelbarrow,” and “Cut Out Witch,” and seemed to drive the crowd into even more of a frenzy, even causing security to have to bring several members out of the crowd for being too excited or passing out. Fortunately no one was rushed to the hospital for bad vibes. Songs from Bee Thousand such as “Echoes Myron” and “Goldheart Mountain Top Queen Directory” were highlights from the set as always, and when Pollard sang “Which Will We Go Now?” from “Smothered in Hugs,” the words gained extra resonance. The extreme length of the concert was never a problem, as it seemed no one left the building. It was clear that the crowd would not be leaving unless GBV had consumed every drop of alcohol in the place.

As the band bowed before their final encore, the historical nature of the moment could not be denied and it was not lost on me at the conclusion of this moving Rock N’ Roll celebration that GBV started 20 years ago. I thought that maybe even Alvy wouldn’t mind being a member of this club, at least for this night. Pollard called the final song the “Ballad of GBV,” which was really “Don’t Stop Now” from Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. It was hard to argue for a better summation of the story and will of a band that it seemed, for that night at least, no one wanted to stop.