GUIDED BY VOICES
The Electrifying Conclusion
Plexifilm
· Are you tired of hearing how live music DVDs are for fans only? Me too.
After 21 years, indie-rock legend Bob Pollard packed in his much-beloved band Guided By Voices with a New Year’s Eve farewell show. It’s rumoured that Pollard has written thousands of songs, and during that last concert, captured on slipshod video by director Matt Monsoor, he tries to play them all. This means that even without exploring the DVD bonus features, the concert itself is almost four hours long – a monolithic time commitment even for the most diehard fan. Pollard struts around the stage high-kicking and posing like a demented cross between James Brown and Mick Jagger as his band plows through more than 60 ditties.
Throughout the event, they’re joined by friends and former members for the occasional song, but this is Pollard’s show, which is both a blessing and a curse. He’s a great songwriter, but given the amount of alcohol he consumes during the show, his stage presence and banter leave a bit to be desired. Of course he isn’t the only one drinking, so by the time Guided By Voices starts playing the favourites in their second encore, they have given up on niceties like keeping their instruments tuned, playing together and singing along. I love Guided By Voices (hell, I have two of their three box sets), but even I got bored watching this thing. Since Guided by Voices’ early albums were lo-fi, home-recorded affairs, it’s only fitting that their swansong feel equally homespun, but in truth the camera work is so poor and the editing so questionable that The Electrifying Conclusion is anything but. Sadly, it will lose its appeal over years.
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