Concert Reviews: Guided By Voices and Coldplay

Ohio natives, Guided By Voices, performed to a sweaty moshpit of madness at the Metro Chicago on September 3. Considering the band member’s age barely outnumbers the amount of 50+ songs performed, their rock n’ roll days are far from over, not even breaking a sweat or struggling to maintain their rockstar coolness. Frontman, Robert Pollard, chugged Jose Cuervo and handy bottles of Miller Lite from a nearby cooler marked “Metro” and patrolled around the stage with his two broken fingers, regaling his brethren with his never-ending catalogue. He didn’t just stick to the Guided By Voices revue, either; rather, he kicked out material from his solo albums, Boston Spaceships, and Ricked Wicky. Along for the ride were longtime drummer Kevin March and guitarist Doug Gillard, guiding newbies Bobby Bare, Jr. and Mark Shue.

It was the final date of their summer tour, and the Dayton, Ohio outfit treated it like a Labor Day soiree. But so did their fans, who forged together in the middle of the crowd to create raucous moshpits or temporary bounce houses. They really went apeshit for “I Am A Tree”, “Cut-Out Witch”, “Echos Myron”, “Band of Pricks”, and “Teenage FBI”, surging high in the air during every hoppy drum hit and slinging back Pollard’s poetry as fast as he kicked around drinks. To crib from Craig Finn, it was a massive night.

Pollard made it a special one, too. Ever the baseball enthusiast — he once pitched a no-hitter in college, mind you — the singer chewed on the exceptional Cubs season, warning that they’re the “Heartbreakers of America.” “I hope I didn’t jinx them,” he joked. Towards the “end”, basically, before the three encores, he even referenced Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” amid poppy anthem “Glad Girls”, changing “And they’re alright” to “We’re all alright” in honor of the Rockford, Illinois legends.

On Saturday August 20, Grandparents, snapchatting young people, and even children packed the stadium, with the only true defining characteristics shared by all the fans being their enthusiasm and their white LED wristbands. Whereas Coldplay-hating might attract the retweets, a Coldplay concert is more reflective as a whole of what the music-

listening society actually looks like, and what they actually enjoy, than anything about concert reviews you’ll find on a website like Twitter.

The heart of this is Martin. Nothing against the rest of Coldplay (guitarist Jonny Buckland, bass player Guy Berryman, and percussionist Will Champion), but the band uses Martin as their ambassador for a reason. From the opening moments of “A Head Full of Dreams”, Martin is out on the stage’s huge extended catwalk, leaping in the air with a giant grin on his face. This smile, often times open-jawed with eyes opened huge, is flat-out contagious. It’s the antithesis of cool, but when you’re entertaining tens of thousands at a time, there’s nothing remotely relatable about playing it cool.

Midway through the set, Martin reflected on this, saying he wished the audience could feel what it was like to perform for so many people. He was giggly and gleeful, enough so that the audience didn’t have to try too hard to put themselves in Martin’s shoes. This can also be said for the band’s more grandiose gestures, be it paying tribute to David Bowie (and everyone that we were missing) with a cover of “Heroes” or alluding to a global unity ahead of “Everglow”.