Guided By Voices perform Friday June 17th at Penns Landing w/ Wavves. Tickets go sale Saturday (April 16th) at noon. We have a pair of tickets to give away to the first Phawker reader that can answer the following trivia question: In the mid-90s, Guided By Voices played a secret show Khyber Pass under what name? Email your answer to FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the phrase ‘GB Fucking V’ in subject line. Please include a day time phone number for confirmation. Good luck and Godspeed!
UPDATE: We have a winner! Thanks all for playing and stay tuned for more groovy concert ticket giveaways.
PREVIOUSLY: Even in its heyday, Guided by Voices always seemed like a time/space anomaly, like the Bud-swilling protagonists of some alternative history of rock-and-roll wherein the Beatles crawl out of the industrial shadows of the Midwest in the early ’90s instead of Liverpool in the early ’60s, and trigger the incontinent mania of record-store clerks, rock critics, and college-radio DJs. The old guard took the stage beneath a neon sign that declared “The club is open” (a lyric from “A Salty Salute” that has come to serve as the reunion tour’s winking nod to those in the know that the good times are here again) and proceeded to take the giddy capacity crowd on a two-hour trip down greatest-hits lane: silvery-maned frontman Robert Pollard was in fine voice and high-kicking form; guitarist Tobin Sprout reprised his role as George Harrison to Pollard’s Lennon and McCartney; bassist Greg Demos, on leave from his law practice, rocked his famous striped white pants; elfin Mitch Mitchell pirouetted through meaty power chords in a halo of cigarette smoke; and drummer Kevin Fennell kept things moving like a brick on the gas pedal. MORE