Photos by Bill Shouldis

I said before that Guided By Voices at Terminal 5 was my favorite show of 2010. They were so great that night that afterwards, I desperately plotted a way to get into their New Year Eve show at Irving Plaza, which was sold out. Luckily, just a few days before the New Years gig, the band announced a show at the much smaller Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ. The tickets were a bit steep but this was a must for any GBV fan.

Never one to disappoint their diehards, the band delivered a nearly 50 song, three hour set. As great as they sounded at Terminal 5, the Maxwell’s show was how a GBV gig should be. It easily topped that show. The band seemed almost as excited (and as drunk) as the crowd. High fives and hugs were exchanged and leader Bob Pollard even shared some of his tequila and beer with the hoard of dudes screaming along to every lyric in the front row.

The “classic era” of GBV is something to behold. Let’s examine the scene:
Who needs oxygen? Clearly not guitarist Mitch Mitchell. Just give him about 5,000 cigarettes and beer and you’re set. Tobin Sprout and drummer Kevin Fennell are the backbone of the band, keeping the madness in check at all times. And what can you say about bassist (and lawyer?) Greg Demos? To understand the man, you just need to look at his outfit. Think Freddy Mercury if he was from Dayton, OH. His pure exuberance and joy while on stage is hard to top. He’s the guy just as excited as you are. And of course, it will never fail to amaze me how Mr. Pollard can be incoherent and nearly falling down between songs but once everything kicks in, he’s a man of precision and perfection, never missing a lyric. What other 53 year old do you know that can high kick and jump like a 20 year old? Shit, Pollard is probably in better shape than me.

GBV at Maxwell’s was the perfect way to send off 2010. I left the show sweaty, without a voice, and yes, pretty drunk.

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Future of the Left killed it live. The songs sounded intense and the band went off between tracks with banter including a rant about how they won’t play Mclusky songs (their former band) when people request them. Granted they wouldn’t play them if they were not requested either. We have been collectively spinning this record non-stop despite pleas from our girlfriends to turn it off because it sounds to evil (namely “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You”) . We can not stress enough how great their new record Travels with Myself and Another is. FOTL is playing Siren Fest this Saturday, so don’t miss it.

Oh boy, Bamboozle ’09 just happened this past weekend. Each year, the shirts get brighter and the free hugs signs larger. Check out our photo wrap up of Bamboozle, uh, fashions below.

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We now have a name for the Coachella-sponsored festival coming to Jersey City this summer; the All Points West Festival. No confirmed lineup as of yet but Jack Johnson, who was rumored for APW (awesome?), has been announced as a headliner for Coachella ’08. Although there are some highlights here and there, the lineup will have a very, very hard time living up to last year’s festival. You can check out the festival lineup after the jump. An announcement is expected soon on the APW lineup, which will go down August 8th-10th at Liberty State Park.

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While I was home in Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law informed me that the city was close to landing a “Austin City Limits-esque” music festival that would take place in Fairmount Park sometime next summer. The festival will indeed be taking place, just not in the “City of Brotherly Love,” since it was announced yesterday that the spot for the event would be Vineland, NJ instead.

According to Philly.com, the three-day festival will be held on August 8 to the 10th and is being put together by C3 Presents, the company that handles the booking for Lollapalooza and the aforementioned Austin City Limits. The company will partner up with the British concert promotion titan Festival Republic, the group behind the famous Glastonbury and Reading Festival. C3 partner Charlie Jones is comparing the event to Manchester, TN’s annual Bonnaroo and called it a “camping festival” that will most likely draw more than 150,000 people.

While the city has not ruled out a “scaled down” concert in Fairmount Park, this is a huge blow seeing how both ACL and Lollapalooza grossed a reported “$9.8 and $11.3 million respectively” in revenue last year.

While Vineland celebrates landing the biggest East Coast music festival, I’m predicting the lineup for this “scaled down” festival. Hall & Oats anyone?