Live music review: Guided By Voices marathon set at Mohawk

Indie-rock constants for decades, Guided By Voices played Austin’s Mohawk on October 22 for a 3-hour long set that just scratched the surface of the depth of the material that the band has produced in its 30+ year history.

Growing older is a strange thing. If you have any preconceived notions of what it involves or how it feels, chances are you are off the mark. Time is the most curious aspect of the process, as time seems to be elastic, stretched to conflict with how we really want it to pass. Time seems to take “forever” when something is painful or when we want something to happen sooner, and it “disappears” when we feel it passing too quickly in reference to our time on this planet. 

Stepping into the Mohawk on Saturday night for a packed house, Guided By Voices show, the only evidence that almost 30 years had passed since music fans were just beginning to get a real taste of this lo-fi, garage rock band out of Dayton, Ohio, was the abundance of grey hair and the inevitable shift of footwear into…something a little more comfortable. You could have scooped up a decent percentage of this audience from their ‘97 Liberty Lunch performance and dropped them into the Mohawk with the previously mentioned updates (or downgrades) and it felt as if time had stood still. A collection of indie-rock music nerds, aged local musicians/scenesters, and a few that managed to break free of the local scene and still represent this generation and this city in the name of music, still doing our thing. And Bob (Robert) Pollard and his music haven’t changed at all. No apologies, no frills, no hits, and still fucking great. 

If you are looking for a review that details every song and moment during this performance, you are going to be greatly disappointed. If you are a Guided By Voices fan you know how the show goes. The band plays 30+ songs during a performance. When you have almost 40 full-length recordings with most tracks clocking in around 2 min or less, and three hours to play with, there’s going to be a lot of songs played. You don’t like the song? Stick around for a minute. It’ll change. 

At the age of 64, Pollard takes the stage to face the crowd chanting GBV!.. GBV!.. GBV!.. as casually as walking into your living room and announcing his presence while reaching for the ever-present Lite beer. Your beer-swigging uncle with more to say about life than most of his peers, and most of it is more interesting than what most people you know have to say. And at the age of 64 performs each song from their expanse catalog with all the energy and enthusiasm one would expect of a true rock-n-roll performer that refuses to quit. The trademark high kicks come a little less often and a little more cautiously but they are still there. Handshakes, high-fives, and fist bumps with audience members and stage security were a constant as Pollard and company burned through their set outlasting quite a few in the audience. Fatigue, nor the cooler full of Lite beer shaved an ounce off the quality of Pollard and bands performance. The quality of the performance has stayed constant. Their sound was just as raw and unrefined as ever. The best a bar band will ever sound on a big stage. And that’s what we love about Guided By Voices. 

For all intents and purposes, Guide By Voices is Robert Pollard. The revolving cast of players of the decades, breathing life into his craft reads as long as the se tlist for the evening. Current players Bobby Bare Jr (guitar and backing vocals), Kevin March (drums and backing vocals), Mark Shue (bass and backing vocals), and the longest-tenured member Doug Gillard (guitar and backing vocals) bring what is necessary to the table for the live performance. Respect for the work that Pollard has produced coupled with their acknowledged skills. And don’t let the image painted here of Pollard discourage you from recognizing his infinite ability to craft poetic rock-n-roll lyrics, relatable, crafty, observational, rebellious, and effectively pedestrian.

I am a pharmacist

Prescriptions I will fill you

Potions, pills and medicines

To ease your painful lives

I am a lost soul

I shoot myself with rock & roll

The hole I dig is bottomless

But nothing else can set me free – “I Am A Scientist”

And much like that uncle would carry on, so does Pollard. Chugging through the lengthy set at a steady pace, song after song, taking a few moments to tell a story or two, with these moments growing more frequent as we all get a little more comfortable with the narrative. At a point, less than midway through the set as Pollard was quick to point out more than an hour in, uncle Bob reassures us that what we are getting is the “best bang for the buck”. Unlike the long line of folks waiting to usher into Stubb’s just down the street for a band that Pollard has less than positive comments about.

Whether or not he was familiar with the band playing or not down the street, he was right. He was also on the mark that Guided By Voices didn’t have any “hits” per se…all of the songs were hits. Once again, he was correct. Pollard has lived a life. He’s written hundreds of songs that are appreciated by thousands of people. He has rubbed elbows with the elites of indie-rock and rock in general. His music scrapped the highest point of “indie” never breaking through to any sort of mainstream audience. And if it were any different, it may not be nearly as good. And it’s doubtful that he would want it any other way. Once again, time plays into the narrative, allowing us this perspective in hindsight. 

As Pollard’s high-energy physical performances of the past have faded, the crowd’s enthusiastic response to favorites hasn’t. A favored selection “I Am A Tree” from the ‘97 release Mag Earwig injected an inevitable surge of electricity into the crowd. This generation’s favorite means of celebrating raucous rock, responsible moshing mixed with dancing and crowd surfing ever present during some of the band’s “hits”. “Back To The Lake” stirred forgotten energy and treasured memories while “Game Of Pricks”, “Chasing Heather Crazy”, “Twilight Campfighter”, “Teenage FBI”, and “I Am A Scientist” satisfied the most casual of fans. Dedicated fans surely found their tidbits of obsessions scattered throughout the set with an equal amount of satisfaction.

As an aforementioned recognized scenester and dedicated fan mentioned in passing at the end of the performance “I could’ve used 6 more songs”.  Maybe not exact words…but you get the idea. And the crazy thing is…Pollard could’ve delivered, effortlessly. 

The only true measurement of “great” is time. Once again we have to painfully wait to understand if it really was as great as we thought it was. And turns out. We were right. 

And uncle Bob is right. Flying sucks and airports treat us like shit. Feds. 

All photos by Michael Maly

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