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Guided By Voices

Rating: NNNN



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A New Year’s Eve gig with a band of notorious elbow-benders is usually a recipe for disaster, but somehow Bob Pollard and his fellow Guided by Voices mates managed to keep themselves in line for their farewell show at the Metro in Chicago on December 31, 2004. Based on the 63 songs that appear on the four-hour (!) concert DVD, The Electrifying Conclusion, they certainly made the most of the special occasion. After a rousing introduction by superfan Beatle Bob (who returns for an instructional dance segment later on), GBV get down to business, with Pollard pausing only to announce the next tune (and what LP, EP or single it comes from), invite a former group member up for a hug and/or knock back a shot poured by onstage bartender Trader Vic. Things start to get a bit unhinged after midnight, when Pollard starts swigging from a champagne bottle and chasing it with bottles of brew, but despite increasingly slurred singing, they pull it off with everyone standing. Actually, by the time they say goodbye, Pollard looks much more coherent than he does at the start of the Antenna show in Memphis from 94, which is tossed in for comparative analysis.

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