Before the festivities commenced, revelers could tell that they were going to be in for a long, special night just by taking one look at the Metro’s stage. Two 5-gallon buckets sat on the drum riser, crudely labeled as receptacles for band members to relieve themselves. Three plastic tubs crammed with beer bottles and ice rested on the floor. Reserve cases of suds stood nearby. If those libations weren’t enough–and they weren’t–a bar stocked with hard liquor and manned by an overzealous server named Trader Vic was off to the right, its vacant barstool doubling as a welcome mat for the thirsty. Shortly after 11:30 p.m., a large neon sign hanging above lit up to proclaim “The Club Is Open.” Guided By Voices’ final show was officially under way.
After 21 years, dozens of releases and a back catalog that makes Bob Dylan’s songbook seem small, the Ohio band founded by a grade-school teacher and beloved by legions of cult fans said its farewell New Year’s Eve in front of a sold-out house. The party included a traditional balloon drop and countdown, but ringing in 2005 paled in comparison to celebrating a group whose unassuming background and lo-fi recordings established indie-rock standards throughout the ’90s. The band is calling it quits not because it lacks success or critical acclaim, but because the group’s creative minds fear complacency and want to move on to fresh challenges.
Irreverent, sloppy and carefree, the 220-minute performance touched on all of Guided By Voices’ lovable strengths and irritating excesses. Over the course of a mind-boggling 63 songs, soaring mountaintop melodies, paper-crunching crescendos and cactus-sharp notes tucked away in lush harmonic blankets shared space with frazzled diction, haphazard arrangements and confounding 30-second fragments that were dead upon arrival. The quintet wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Early on, Guided By Voices captain of industry Bob Pollard declared his intention to get inebriated. Although the vocalist’s speech deteriorated with each drink, he avoided garbling words until well past the set’s midway point, after which he briefly began reducing smash-and-grab power-pop such as “Huffman Prairie Flying Field” and “Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy” into slurry.
But as has long been Guided By Voices’ credo, when one member falls the others rally and pick him up. Nate Farley was so soused that his eyes were tiny slits, yet he and Doug Gillard’s guitars carved hang-fire grooves, fire-crackling tones and sticky-sweet hooks into the trampoline-bounce rhythms and serrated tempos supplied by bassist Chris Slusarenko and drummer Kevin March. A rotating cast of guest musicians comprising former band members, family and friends spelled temporary relief for everyone but Pollard, who took a few quick time-outs by handing his microphone to willing participants in the crowd.
Pollard also received a pick-me-up in the form of a break before the first encore. When he returned, his faux English accent, sailor salutations, Roger Daltrey microphone-cord twirl and one-legged bunny hop were backfiring on all cylinders. The quintet proceeded to rattle off a stream of should-have-been hits, sonically commandeering a moped’s sputtering engine for “Motor Away,” contemplating physics through the roller-coasting dips of “Echos Myron” and transforming the crowd into a giddy choir that basked in the paranoid vibes of “Teenage FBI.”
Halfway into “Secret Star,” Pollard launched into the reasons he started Guided By Voices. He recalled telling his first mates, “I just want to have fun. I don’t have anything to offer because it’s all been done.” And although the band’s tuneful chug drew from a gene pool that included the Who, the Cars and Cheap Trick, Pollard’s intuitive ability to transport listeners to exotic worlds was anything but ordinary. Pasted together, his mystical lyrics and impassioned delivery were a mammoth storybook that never ran out of pages or ideas. “Wished I Was a Giant,” “I Am a Scientist” and “I Am a Tree” reflected childlike fantasies; “I Drove a Tank” and “My Valuable Hunting Knife” served as escapist mechanisms; “Hot Freaks” and “Demons Are Real” adopted folklore’s sense of mystery.
When the swan song arrived, Pollard jokingly introduced it as a new number titled “The Ballad of Guided By Voices.” It was actually “Don’t Stop Now,” a message that as he sang the closing chorus, Pollard struggled against defying. Standing motionless with his eyes closed and right hand frozen in the air, the 47-year-old was a stoic portrait of bittersweet relief and sad joy, realizing that what began as a basement hobby was in the home stretch of its fairytale run, a dream that if it had been anything but real no one would ever have believed could come true.
