Alien Lanes

I loved Guided by Voices, but I was not yet in love with them when I saw them on the tour supporting Alien Lanes. Two hours, some free beers from Bob himself, a wicked leg cramp, and, I dunno, fifty tunes I was only marginally familiar with at the time had me checking my watch. The mic twirls and leg kicks were fun for a novelty, but after so long... And then came "Watch Me Jumpstart". I experienced a moment of clarity regarding music unlike any before or any that would come after. Monumental chords shook the ground beneath me, and the significance of Robert Pollard's epic call to stand and be counted really hit me.
The Who, The Beatles, and all GBV's other obvious touchstones differed from the people I was watching onstage in one critical respect: Those other bands were "rock stars"; Robert Pollard was just the most average guy in the world, blessed with the skills of a master songsmith and boundless imagination. He's no rock star, but he gets to play one every day of his life, and the large-hearted wonder he beams as a result of that opportunity is like nothing I've ever found in any other music. Alien Lanes was the band's first real chance to show this to the world at large; Bee Thousand came first, and gets all the attendant acclaim, but (to paraphrase), that is not to say that Alien Lanes is not the best they've ever been. --Eric Carr