Robert Pollard Tears Seattle Apart

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Why is it every time I’m in Seattle I find myself in some intimate little venue enjoying an amazing music performance? They get such great acts here and have such a healthy music scene in Seattle. After a long day of seminar presentations at Flashforward, we were in the mood to enjoy some live music so we looked up the local listings and discovered Robert Pollard was playing a solo show at the famously ecclectic Crocodile Cafe on 2nd Avenue.

The former front man of Guided By Voices, Pollard approached the stage and his audiance with the aggression of an angry drunk. Actually, he was drunk, and proceeded to chug no less than ten beers and a quarter bottle of tequila during the set. Where mere mortals would have gotten sloppier and eroded into oblivion on stage, Pollard actually got sharper, more coherent and sounded better as the night went on. Pollard’s vocals were strong and powerful with a punkish irreverence yet tainted with a dark sadness at times. A masterful songwriter who knows how to create a melodic hook, the performance at times sounded like old school Who mixed with Oasis, held together with a solid dose of American indie rock agnst. The crowd seemed there to see what he might do next, or if he’d even make it to the end of the set. By the end of the night he had suitably insulted the entire Seattle crowd and broke the strictly enforced no smoking laws, but no one really seemed to mind. He’s Bob Pollard!