Words and Photos by Aaron Richter

Guided by Voices, 2003; Columbia, Missouri. One of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen. It was an entirely ridiculous show akin to seeing Cheeseburger in a sloppy Brooklyn basement; nothing in the venue was left undoused in beer. Touring Earthquake Glue, Pollard arrived in town on a Monday night to play for a sparse turnout of around maybe 50–75 people, most of whom ended up onstage toward the set’s end. The group played for three hours; Pollard drank a full bottle of tequila, at least seven beers and—before the night’s final song, at that point pretty much reduced to a mumbling mess—announced that he was hitting the bars and that anyone was welcome to join him. We left drenched in sweat and beer (and blood, in the case of my friend, who’d gashed his hand open on a broken bottle).