{"id":21601,"date":"2014-06-17T08:15:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T16:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=21601"},"modified":"2014-06-17T15:03:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T23:03:03","slug":"live-review-guided-by-voices-at-fonda-theater-on-friday-the-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2014-06\/live-review-guided-by-voices-at-fonda-theater-on-friday-the-13th\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Review–Guided By Voices at Fonda Theater on Friday The 13th."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fonda\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We’ve been fans of Guided By Voices<\/strong><\/a> since the day we first heard their breakthrough, Desert Island album Bee Thousand<\/strong> in 1994.\u00a0 And then we caught GBV<\/strong> live in April 1995 at the<\/a> Great American Music Hall<\/strong> in San Francisco while they were out on the Alien Lanes<\/strong><\/em> tour.\u00a0 We’ve been hopeless devotees of the band ever since (though we will admit to wilting somewhat under the weight and girth of GBV’s<\/strong> and leader Robert Pollard’s<\/strong> prolific recorded output).\u00a0 In 1995, they powered and swaggered through a lo-fi, anthem-riddled setlist while hammering big bottles of booze and chain-smoking away.\u00a0 Straight outta Dayton.\u00a0 The band (Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell<\/strong> and Greg Demos<\/strong> at the core) had the crowd completely enamored with Pollard’s high-kicks, leaps, and Daltrey<\/strong>-esque mic-swings, Mitch Mitchell’s<\/strong> guitar-windmilling and chain-smoking, bassist Greg Demos’ <\/strong>outfits and plowing bass, and 33 songs (all between 60 and 120 seconds long).\u00a0 It was so powerful a performance that it caused us to forget until recently that Elliot Smith<\/strong>(!) was one of the openers that night.\u00a0 The next year in 1996 at the GAMH, Spoon<\/strong> opened for<\/a> GBV<\/a>, <\/strong>on the Under The Bushes Under The Stars<\/em> <\/strong>tour, and the band solidified its rightful place in our top live-bands-of-all-time echelon.<\/p>\n

\"Pollard+Kick\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fast forward through partial and complete breakups (in 2004), solo albums, and label-squabbles to their 2010 reunion and the band releasing six (!) new albums in the last 2-1\/2 years.\u00a0 Having not seen them since 1996, when we heard the band was at last headed to California and a show at the Fonda Theater<\/strong> last Friday the 13th, we couldn’t wait to catch ’em again.\u00a0 In short, at the Fonda GBV<\/strong> once again restored our faith in rock ‘n roll and powered through 48 songs<\/strong> (like almost every night of this tour–see the setlist at bottom).<\/p>\n

\"Pollard\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thankfully, in many ways not much has changed since those San Francisco shows.\u00a0 Yes, the band’s members have aged over those 20 years, but at the Fonda<\/strong> Pollard<\/strong> still had the high-kicks, leaps, stage-spits and mic-twirls, Mitchell<\/strong> still chain-smoked throughout while hitting the Cuervo<\/strong> bottles and beers hard with Pollard, Greg Demos<\/strong> (with his signature attire and heart-attack-level effort) and Kevin March<\/strong> passionately played and mouthed the words to the songs as if they were their own, and Tobin Sprout<\/strong> still added his seriously underrated guitar, songs and vocals to the mix.\u00a0 What has<\/span> changed these days is the band’s generation-spanning, mosh-happy audience.\u00a0 There were tons of twentysomethings to mix with back-in-the-day fans and mosh and sing at the top of their lungs.\u00a0 It was a joyous, heartwarming atmosphere.<\/p>\n

As for the music itself, in the first third of the set GBV<\/strong> rightfully concentrated on their two most recent albums, last year’s fantastic Motivational Jumpsuit<\/strong> <\/em>and the impressive, just-released Cool Planet<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Pollard urged the crowd to really jump onto the new songs cause “they’re big hits!”\u00a0 And he isn’t wrong.\u00a0 Many of the songs from their last four albums should, in a better world, be “big hits,” such as the well-delivered Littlest League Possible, Pan Swimmer, Planet Score, Vote For Me Dummy, Xeno Pariah<\/strong><\/em> and Record Level Love<\/strong><\/em> (minor squabble: where were two of the best new songs Islands (She Talks in Rainbows)<\/strong><\/em> and Save The Company<\/strong><\/em>?).\u00a0 As great as the new songs are, it took the old “hits” to fully-ignite the age-spanning crowd.\u00a0 And ignite they did on Buzzards and Dreadful Crows<\/strong><\/em> and Gold Star For Robot Boy<\/strong><\/em>, though there wasn’t a complete crowd-conflagration until the band fired up fan-favorite Tractor Rape Chain<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 The singalong stimulants during the set were Teenage FBI, Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory, I Am a Scientist, Game of Pricks, Motor Away<\/strong> <\/em>and night-closer A Salty Salute<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 Other highlights were several spare ballads (14 Cheerleader Coldfront<\/strong><\/em>) on which Pollard and Sprout supplied their surprisingly deft harmony vocals.<\/p>\n

\"GBVBand\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Throughout the night Pollard<\/strong> was effusive about LA (“this great city”), and flipped, caught and handed out multiple beers to the audience from his magic bucket while calling the generation-spanning crowd “kids.”\u00a0 Pollard also assayed the band’s early albums and provided his (many) opinions on various record labels (Matador<\/strong> the only one that received Pollard-praise and went unscathed).\u00a0 By night’s end Pollard might have slurred a word or two, but it didn’t affect his singing, stage antics or high-kicks.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the show was yet another phenomenal showing from this never-say-die band.\u00a0\u00a0 Make sure you pick up their recent albums HERE<\/strong><\/a> and catch them the next time they come to town (they remaining dates of their tour are listed below the setlist).<\/p>\n

Long live Guided By Voices<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

Setlist<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Planet Score<\/strong><\/em>
\n Hat of Flames<\/strong><\/em>
\n Authoritarian Zoo<\/strong><\/em>
\n Pan Swimmer<\/strong><\/em>
\n Alex and the Omegas<\/strong><\/em>
\n Buzzards and Dreadful Crows<\/strong><\/em>
\n Psychotic Crush<\/strong><\/em>
\n A Bird with No Name<\/strong><\/em>
\n Wished I Was a Giant<\/strong><\/em>
\n Littlest League Possible<\/strong><\/em>
\n Gold Star for Robot Boy<\/strong><\/em>
\n Fast Crawl<\/strong><\/em>
\n Xeno Pariah<\/strong><\/em>
\n Vote for Me Dummy<\/strong><\/em>
\n Record Level Love<\/strong><\/em>
\n Ester\u2019s Day<\/strong><\/em>
\n Fair Touching<\/strong><\/em>
\n These Dooms<\/strong><\/em>
\n Table at Fool\u2019s Tooth<\/strong><\/em>
\n Tractor Rape Chain<\/strong><\/em>
\n The Head<\/strong><\/em>
\n Zero Elasticity<\/strong><\/em>
\n The Challenge Is Much More<\/strong><\/em>
\n He Rises! Our Union Bellboy<\/strong><\/em>
\n Echos Myron<\/strong><\/em>
\n All American Boy<\/strong><\/em>
\n Teenage FBI<\/strong><\/em>
\n You Get Every Game<\/strong><\/em>
\n Spiderfighter<\/strong><\/em>
\n Males of Wormwood Mars<\/strong><\/em>
\n Cut-Out Witch<\/strong><\/em>
\n Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory<\/strong><\/em>
\n No Transmission<\/strong><\/em>
\n Cool Planet<\/strong><\/em>
\n I Am A Scientist<\/strong><\/em>
\n Game of Pricks<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

First Encore<\/span>:<\/p>\n

How I Met My Mother<\/strong><\/em>
\n Shocker in Gloomtown<\/strong><\/em>
\n Awful Bliss<\/strong><\/em>
\n Unleashed! The Large Hearted Boy<\/strong><\/em>
\n Motor Away<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Second Encore<\/span> (Pollard:\u00a0 “If it’s OK with you, how about we just skip that leaving the stage and coming back for the third encore part?”):<\/p>\n

A Good Flying Bird<\/strong><\/em>
\n 14 Cheerleader Coldfront<\/strong><\/em>
\n Pimple Zoo<\/strong><\/em>
\n Smothered in Hugs<\/strong><\/em>
\n Quality of Armor<\/strong><\/em>
\n Exit Flagger<\/strong><\/em>
\n A Salty Salute<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Tour Dates<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n

6.20.14 Madison, WI – Barrymore Theatre<\/a> *<\/i>
\n6.21.14 Chicago, IL – Green Music Festival<\/a>
\n6.22.14 Minneapolis, MN – Rock The Garden @ Walker Arts Center &<\/a>
\n7.10.14 New Haven, CT – Toad’s Place<\/a>@
\n7.11.14 New York, NY – Irving Plaza<\/a> #
\n7.12.14 Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club<\/a> #
\n8.22.14 Huntington, NY – Paramount Theater %
\n<\/a>8.23.14 Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony %
\n<\/a>11.7.14 – 11.9.14 Austin, TX – Fun Fun Fun Fest<\/a><\/p>\n

* with Bobby Bare, Jr.
\n& with Spoon & Kurt Vile
\n# with Crystal Stilts
\n@ with Speedy Ortiz
\n% with Boogarins <\/i><\/p>\n

Color photos: courtesy of Bill Cuttler<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been fans of Guided By Voices since the day we first heard their breakthrough, Desert Island album Bee Thousand in 1994.\u00a0 And then we caught GBV live in April 1995 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco while they were out on the Alien Lanes tour.\u00a0 We’ve been hopeless devotees of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}