D'Anne: Oct. 30 is always a fun night in this city. While people in other cities across the country are trying to figure out which Halloween party to go to, Detroiters have the delightful choice of being devils (aka "arsonists") or angels (aka "people who don't want their neighborhood burned down for funsies").
Laura: Then there are those of us who decide our need to see a seminal and prolific indie rock band from our formative years beats out burning abandoned houses to the ground — if only by a tiny margin.
D'Anne: When Guided by Voices hit the stage, Robert Pollard did address the crowd with, "We're gonna burn down the city tonight!"
Laura: And musically speaking, they did. Focusing mainly on their early to mid-'90s output, the band blazed through two hours of indie rock classics.
D'Anne: And reports are indicating that the number of fires this year is up from last year, ... so maybe he was serious.
Laura: Don't try to pin the uptick in fires on Guided by Voices, D'Anne ...
D'Anne: I really doubt it was them — I mean, I don't want to come across as ageist, but — wow, Guided by Voices are old dudes.
Laura: This is true — which made it even more awesome that they played such an amazing, high-energy set.
D'Anne: Yes. And Bob Pollard — who turned 53-years-old on stage that very night — can high kick, mic swing and drink a whole bottle of Jose Cuervo with the best of 'em.
Laura: This is true. Over the many years of Guided by Voices career, Mr. Pollard has developed quite the reputation as a "creative stage banterer."
D'Anne: He at one point actually said, "I want to apologize for not being fucked-up enough on this tour."
Laura: This is the man who had an entire album's worth of his drunken onstage musings released as an album a few years ago. Aside from a short rant about Cher bring a "plastic woman" he was relatively tame. I think that guitarist Mitch Mitchell had the best lines of the night. He out-Pollarded Pollard with, "I like to get pussy! Detroit pussy is the best!"
D'Anne: Mitchell then went on to ramble through another largely indecipherable declarative statement that ended with, "Tits 'n' fuckin' wieners!" I have already started making bootleg GBV shirts with this silk-screened in a huge font on the back.
Laura: That is very entrepreneurial, D'Anne.
D'Anne: Thank you. I'll let you know when my "Tits 'n' Fuckin' Wieners!" Etsy store is up and running.
Laura: My set list highlights were "Watch Me Jumpstart," "Shocker in Gloomtown," "Echos Myron," "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows" and "My Impression Now." I kind of don't want to listen to anything but Guided by Voices now.
D'Anne: They even played my favorite song "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory." Considering this is a band with a catalog of somewhere in the range of a million to a billion songs, I knew the chances were kind of slim.
Laura: Very true.
D'Anne: Bee Thousand is my GBV touchstone. They played a lot of songs from that record.
Laura: 1994, represent!
D'Anne: We were how old then?
Laura: I don't seen any reason to disclose this information.
D'Anne: Oh, OK. Then let's just say we weren't born yet. People believe everything they read.
Laura: This might blow your "we weren't born yet" ruse, but I once used "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" in a charades-like game we played in my Advance Speech class in high school. The kid who got that one was pissed.
D'Anne: You're kidding, right?
Laura: No. The teacher said we could use song titles! She never said they had to be easy titles of songs my classmates had heard of.
D'Anne: Wow. You were such a pretentious nerd. You still are.
Laura: I take umbrage only at the use of the term "pretentious." I am proud to be a nerd.
D'Anne: There were a lot of people in Halloween costumes at the show. I saw a Mexican wrestler, a scary mime-like monster, and Wendy, the namesake of the fast food joint. My favorite, though, was Abe Lincoln post-assassination, complete with bullet wound.
Laura: I didn't see that.
D'Anne: Your loss.
Laura: I wish we had seen some people dressed up in costumes inspired by GBV songs. I'd love to see somebody dressed as a "Tractor Rape Chain."
D'Anne: Or "My Valuable Hunting Knife." Or "Marchers in Orange" would be a good one for a simple but clever group costume. So many possibilities!
Laura: I think other people were in costume, too, though I'm not sure. This was the perfect night to play the game "Halloween costume or hipster?"
D'Anne: Right. Are you wearing aviator shades, a giant plastic beaded necklace, brown leather vest with rawhide stitching, Lee Jeans, and jelly shoes because you're planning to go trick-or-treating as a group home escapee, or is this how you actually dress?
Laura: Um, I am a group home escapee and that's how I actually dress, thank you very much.
D'Anne: At one point I saw a single crutch being hoisted in the air from in front of the stage. It could have been part of a Halloween costume, or it could have been a Guided by Voices-inspired faith healing.
Laura: Probably the latter. In fact, maybe that's the audience member Robert pollard let have a swig out of his Jose Cuervo bottle. Seeing that Pollard is still going strong, it's proof that shit has some powerful healing properties.
D'Anne: Well, '90s indie rock reunions like this might heal people in and of themselves. People had their hands up in the air, shouted along, whooped and hollered. It was a lot like a revival. A revival soaked in liquor and Miller Lite.
Laura: I'll give a slurred "Tits n' fuckin' wieners" to that one, sister.
The sisters Witkowski regularly commentate on the local music scene. Send your commentations to [email protected].
