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Since I largely ignored them in the ’90s, I didn’t get to see Guided by Voices until 2004. At that show, they were largely boring and uninspired. This time, however, they were anything but and after watching them, I realized once again that ignoring them for most of their original lifespan was definitely a mistake on my part. There’s one crucial difference, of course, between the lineup I saw 6 years ago and the current one. For the past few months, singer and extraordinarily prolific songwriter Robert Pollard has been touring with their “classic lineup” (the 1993-1996 one) featuring Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennel and Greg Demos.
To be blunt, they came out of the gate and just completely dominated. This was on a full-on rock and roll experience with no irony whatsoever. The setlist was killer, too, featuring songs recorded specifically from that time period. Thus, we got to hear about half of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes along with significant portions of Under the Bashes, Under the Stars, the Tigerbomb EP and other recordings as well. Along with established classics like “Exit Flagger,” “Tractor Rape Chain,” “Hot Freaks,” “My Valuable Hunting Knife” and “Game of Pricks”, we also got hidden gems like Sprout’s “Dodging Invisible Rays” as well. Pollard was in full gear, too, doing tons of mic twirls, tae kwan do-inspired leg kicks and other rock star moves throughout the course of the evening and Mitchell was also inspired, energetic and like Pollard, very talktative. At one point, he even jokingly propositioned all of the single ladies of Philadelphia.
Now Blitzen Trapper, on the other hand, have to be one of the worst openers I’ve seen in recent memory. I’ve never heard their records, but based on their live shows, I don’t get their appeal at all. They have absolutely zero stage presence and no hooks. As my wife said, she wants the twenty minutes back that we watched them play and frankly, so do I. What’s interesting is that though one of their guitairsts was wearing a Wipers shirt, they sounded way more like The Grateful Dead or The Steve Miller Band. The guitarist, however, looked like he belonged in a different, far better band and whatever that band is, I wish they would’ve been opening the show. If not, another band from the same time period like the recently reactivated Strapping Fieldhands would’ve been a better choice. Blitzen Trapper, however, were a poor match for GBV.
The GBV setlist can be found here.
