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YEAH!:
The first disc of this set is impeccable! My jaw dropped! The sound is excellent......I never saw it on TV and when I did it was only the last five minutes.....Im not deaf--tons of mistakes but all the songs are played with the spirit that made this band so great. IT OPENS WITH DEMONS ARE REAL. Enough said!
Do not start here if you are on the fence about GBV:
This live album is a fan's dream...one great song after another. However, not surprisingly, Pollard gets progressively more drunk towards the end of the show, culminating in an absolutely horrible version of "Glad Girls" (although you could certainly argue that it was intentionally horrible!). Having said that, man there are some great songs on here and it's nice to have live versions for once. I saw the Austin City Limits show on t.v. but this has much more material on it. Now, as the title of my review suggests, if you are a newbie or if you are undecided about whether Pollard is a genius or just a low-fi hack, this is definitely NOT the place to start. There is the "greatest hits" CD which I think has some pretty representative choices on it (even if it is all over the map, again not surprisingly for GBV). I would start there, and get this CD much further---once you've been converted! (By the way, I used to be in the camp that thinks that Pollard writes two or three good songs per album and a whole bunch of crap...I have come to realize that his hit to miss ratio is MUCH better than that and he is not overrated, by any means. I am really enjoying this live album and glad they put it out.....)
Ultimate representative album of Guided by Voices:
Robert Pollard, singer song-writer of Dayton, OH-based Guided by Voices, decided to disband the group after the excellent 2004 album "Half Smile of the Decomposed" and held a victory lap of some sort with the band's last tour in Fall, 2004. "Live from Austin" (2 CDs, 30 tracks, 90 min.) brings in its totality one of the last shows of the band (November 9, 2004). Guided by Voices in its 20 year run released a multitude of albums, it was really impossible to keep track of all their music, but of course 1994's "Bee Thousand" album remains the stand-out. This collection is a great summary of it all, in a live setting, as it should be. It's hard to pinpoint highlights as such, as the songs whiz by one after another, but check out "Cut Out Witch", featuring Pete York. Pollard's in between songs banter is fun, if non-sensical. At one point he shouts "If you suck, you still rule!" and that just about summarizes it! I caught the band on their "victory lap" at the Southgate House in Newport (just across from Cincinnati), and it was quite the show. Since disbanding GBV, Pollard has gone on to release a number of solo records. Check out in particular last year's "From a Compound Eye", which was one of Pollard's best in a long time.
Not quite peak form:
The Austin City Limits release constitutes the first official live cd from GBV (not counting the semi-bootleg "Jellfish Reflector" from 1996) and that alone makes a worthwhile release. The first disc is generally solid although the set list leans a little bit too heavily on lesser material. The performances are solid although too many of Doug Gillard's guitar leads are buried in the mix. While song selection improves on the second disc, song quality declines, most likely due to the band's copious drinking. Lowlights include a sloppy, slowed-down "Glad Girls" and Robert Pollard screwing up the lyrics to "I Am A Scientist," arguably the band's finest and most famous song. Still, there's a lot to like here, especially for long time fans who have always wanted a real live cd with the Pollard/Gillard/Farley lineup. If this isn't the best possible show, its more than good enough. (Note: Those new to the GBV experience will get a better picture of what the band was about onstage with the "Electrifying Conclusion" DVD which documents all four hours of the band's final show.
Just Watched:
I am a fan of indie in general but Guided by Voices is still somewhat new to me. After reading the other reviews on this "Austin City Limits" performance, I was none too sure that it would be worthwhile, but I have to say after viewing, it was a great concert, surely not a suave and polished set by any stretch but had all the intensity and intimacy that you'd expect of a setting like Austin City Limits. True, Pollard gets quite polluted (noting at one point that it's easy to mistake tequila for beer, not a big problem since he's evidently happy to drink both) but that only adds to a sort of raucous indie atmosphere of "anything goes". GBV certainly has its place and I heard many tracks that I'd like to own in audio format. Good stuff, all in all!!
| Binding: | Music Download | | Genre: | pop-music | | Release Date: | 2007-08-02 | | Running Time: | 0 seconds |
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