Guided by Voices
The Electrifying Conclusion
2005, Plexifilm
No one cares today that December 31, 2004 at The Metro in Chicago was not the end of Guided by Voices.
When the 90s lineup reunited for a tour in 2010, it was good news. Nobody called foul in any way that mattered. People loved it. I loved it.
Guided by Voices has had several endings after all and each one has its own story.
The story of this one is that Robert Pollard wanted to retire the band on a high note, go out while everyone still got along and middle-aged bones and vocal chords could still deliver the three-hour beer blast that crowds expected when GUIDED BY VOICES was on the marquee. A big part of it was also that Pollard had an unreleased new solo double album that felt to him like the next frontier. Closing out GBV at the time was a personal decision and an artistic decision and the big fans understood.
The Electrifying Conclusion tour was light compared to the band’s last five years of punishing road work. It began in August and ended in December with only a few dozen stops in between, all in the US, with multi-night stands in New York City, Portland, and Chicago.
Bottom line: This was a tour from a leader who was done with this, but needed to at least say goodbye to the crazy crowds, to the lovefest that erupted whenever this band got together and plugged in. Past GBV lineups went down in drama and this was a rare chance to have a happy break-up, one that closes with a blowout celebration with guests galore (everyone from Tobin Sprout to Jim Greer to Jon Wurster turning up for a song or two).
For a band who always made every show a party, this was the only way to go out.
The twist is that life goes on. Also, band/brand names are powerful. And if you can still execute a high-kick and sing “Tractor Rape Chain” in your 50s and 60s it’s just plain irresponsible to stop.
In the end, the grand narrative of Guided by Voices is about perseverance.
The flag always flies. Guided by Voices will go on even if Pollard has to replace the whole band (he’s done it before). Guided by Voices isn’t supposed to go away. Its fate is to survive anything and everything. When rock ‘n’ roll is finally dead, Guided by Voices will have a new album out that spring. And then another one a few months later.
Guided by Voices is alive as long as Robert Pollard is, at least. The fans understand that, too.
I wonder though if it took closing the curtain for Pollard himself to understand it.
So, The Electrifying Conclusion.
In 1990, it was a line in a song (“Murder Charge” from Same Place the Fly Got Smashed).
In 2004, it was the name of what was supposed to be the final Guided by Voices tour.
In 2005, it was the name of the DVD of the epic last show of that tour.
In 2024, The Electrifying Conclusion is now just a party, but it’s one that you need to witness. It’s funny and messy and rocking and if you love this band, it will pulverize you.
When I watch it today, I’m impressed that we got a release of this scope. This DVD is exactly what a fan wants for this special occasion, which is the WHOLE show, the entire marathon that goes on for nearly four hours. We want every song and every Pollard wisecrack. We want the New Year’s countdown and everything else. Nothing cut out. Nothing slicked over.
And that’s what we got and I’m grateful.
Because I wasn’t there.
On New Year’s Eve 2004, I had an important appointment with staying at home at my spot in Texas and being broke, but I did see the band several times during this period and this disc captures the experience. It’s got about a million songs (okay, sixty-four, but that’s closer to a million than most live shows offer) and enough shots of the manic crowd that you can imagine yourself in there. All it’s missing is an occasional spray of beer droplets that land on your shoulders (who are these people who launch their beer into the air at rock shows?) and a stranger who throws their arm around you as you sing along with “Smothered in Hugs”.
Guided by Voices shows from this period are some of the best times I’ve ever had in a rock club. I have never jumped around and pumped my fist like that before or since. They were loud and fun and went on for so long that I think I might still be at a Guided by Voices show right now.
This set begins with the best possible song. “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox” once set the scene for a previous ending of the band (Propeller) and now here it is doing the same job, throwing the switch for another last hurrah. This powerful lineup deliver it with the urgency of a cannonball.
The next two songs blow by in a flash, but their lyrics are heavy for the occasion. What did the words to “Watch Me Jumpstart” and “Pimple Zoo” mean back in 1995 on Alien Lanes? I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Here though, one seems to address Pollard’s itch to move forward (“Watch me jumpstart as the old skin is peeled”). The other comes off as a 47-year-old man’s fear of becoming a shadow of himself onstage (“Sometimes I get the feeling that you don’t want me around”), but roared with the confidence of someone who knows that he’s not there yet.
Pollard crafted this setlist with care, I have no doubt. You could take it as an expanded, alternate The Best of Guided by Voices sequence as it weaves back and forth through the band’s history, representing almost every album (skipping only the first two) and most of the EPs even. Solo and side projects are left out with only three exceptions.
Across this long set, you also see the many sides of Pollard as a performer, flaws and all. He’s the commanding front man, the comedian, the shit-talker, the reflective storyteller (see “Secret Star”, which was a platform on this tour for Pollard to speak off the cuff about GBV’s history while the band hypnotically extended the song’s quiet part), and, yes, even the ragged drunk. By the two-and-a-half hour mark, he’s a beer-brained zombie, growling through “Buzzards and Dreadful Crows” and “Glad Girls”. (Then again, I’d like to see any rock singer try to hold it together for four hours straight.)
However, this only makes his recovery for the two encores all the more mighty.
The first encore fires out a pack of crowd-pleasers that the band hadn’t gotten to yet. Five of its nine songs are from Bee Thousand.
The second and last encore is fascinating and we should all be analyzing it and coming up with insane theories about it. Pollard’s intro: “The final set, and I thought hard and long about it and we’re going to play it for you right now”. And I’m going to talk about it right now.
“A Salty Salute”
A setlist staple and Pollard’s greatest song about savoring a moment. Yeah, this needed to be one of the last songs.
“Postal Blowfish”
I have no idea what this song is about, but it rocks and that’s enough. My peanut gallery guess is that this is here as a nod to the fans. The top GBV forum back in the day, the one with all of the scoops, was an e-mail list called Postal Blowfish. By extension, that also became the nickname for the fans at the time. What does “Hold your tongue/ Brace yourself/ Give me a kiss/ Show me what I missed” have to do with that? I don’t know, but we can figure out something.
“Pendulum”
I love that this encore has so many deep cuts. “We’ll be middle-aged children, but so what?”. That’s Pollard. That’s a lot of the audience. That’s me right now. Also, the line “I haven’t changed so drastically/ They can talk so sarcastically” has a new edge to it when sung by Pollard in 2004 than it had in 1990.
“Dayton, Ohio, 19-Something-and-5”
Another deep cut. What is Guided by Voices? It’s a haze of nostalgia thrown back at you. They’re not The Beatles, but they are a fuzzy, distorted memory of The Beatles. They’re also not The Who, Wire, Genesis, or Big Star, but fuzzy memories of those bands swirled together. In this song, Pollard addresses another influence: Dayton, Ohio itself. His hometown. He knows the year, but not the decade. Another fuzzy memory turned into a beautiful song.
“He’s the Uncle”
Yet another deep cut. In the mid-90s, this non-album classic struck me as a song about GBV’s arrival. Lines such as “Be leaving here quite soon now/ Be pushing off to the moon now” sounded like Pollard moving on from his old life for his new one as a full-time rocker. Those same lines in 2004 though perfectly serenade GBV’s departure.
“Exit Flagger”
We need a rocker before the tear-jerker finale and, yes, it needs to be this one.
“Don’t Stop Now”
And here it is, the last song. Since Guided by Voices don’t play the same set every night, fans had a good time speculating about what song would close out the circus. “Smothered in Hugs” was the most frequent set ender on this tour, with the occasional “I Am a Scientist” and “Motor Away”, but I think we all knew it had to be this one. It truly is “the ballad of Guided by Voices”, as Pollard calls it. Bands break up, but music lives forever and “Don’t Stop Now” here is a funeral for something that is never going to die.
By the end, lead guitarist Doug Gillard and drummer Kevin March are solid steel, bassist Chris Slusarenko somehow seems like he could go for a few more songs and is ready to form Boston Spaceships already, second guitarist Nate Farley looks like he will do the collapse as soon as he gets backstage, Bob is stinking and unafraid, and in the audience the dry eyes are few.
So, goodbye to this version of Guided by Voices. They were the most capable and dedicated road warriors that Pollard has ever worked with. This band was hell-bent on giving the crowd their money’s worth and more. They exhausted you. They exhausted themselves. They did the classic rock thing in which they recorded an album every year and then went on a big, grueling tour and left a smoking crater behind at every club, pulling off huge sets of new songs, old songs, and even crazy stuff from Pollard’s latest solo records and side projects.
They were golden times. I’m glad that I was there for some of it and I will always appreciate that this DVD allows me to pretend that I was there for the very last of it.