Guided By Voices Reunite, Again, Kind Of
LOL WTF, GBV? Ohio indie-rock heroes Guided By Voices hung it up very ceremoniously on New Year’s Eve 2004, reunited with even more fanfare in 2010, and then ended with a whimper, not a bang, in late 2014. Now they seem to be back in action yet again. Calgary’s Sled Island Music & Arts Festival just announced its lineup, and right atop the bill — ahead of Peaches, Deafheaven, Angel Olsen, Built To Spill, and the like — is Guided By Voices.
According to Pitchfork, the band returns with a new live setup, and a new album is in the works with Robert Pollard playing everything. So although this seems to be more of a rebranding of Pollard’s solo career than a proper GBV reboot, any version of the band that features Pollard howling his classics between beer-can swigs is a welcome addition to the world’s touring live music circuit. The club, so it seems, is open.
As for Sled Island, it’s going down 6/22-26 at Olympic Plaza in Calgary. Tickets are on sale now. More than 250 bands will perform, and the initial lineup reveal seems promising. Here’s the poster:
UPDATE: GBV have revealed the new live line-up for the band. And it is…
And the new GBV live line-up is: Robert Pollard with Bobby Bare Jr. (guitar), Kevin March (drums), Nick Mitchell (guitar), Mark Shue (bass)
— Guided By Voices (@GBVTweets) February 9, 2016