Scoots and Mackie in Dayton! A Guided by Voices Labor Day extravaganza

The long-awaited 40th anniversary weekend of one of my very favorite rock bands, Guided by Voices, began with a drive to Baltimore Washington Airport, a flight to Indianapolis, and a drive with my buddy Scoots to beautiful Dayton, Ohio - home of GBV!

Of course, a trip with Scoots wouldn’t be right without an oddball stop for lunch at an Indian grocery store/gas station restaurant called Rasoi Indian Kitchen. Some of the best chicken tikki masala I’ve ever had!

After unpacking at the Holiday Inn Express Suites, it was off to the Dayton Masonic Temple. The place is kind of a maze to navigate but a fun joint - with such plush carpet! - to spend the next two nights.

Kiwi Jr., a band from Toronto whose Pavement-like albums I like a lot, played a tight and pleasurable opening set. Dinosaur Jr., one of my favorite bands, was next and played its usual rowdy Hendrix-like J. Mascis guitar and bouncy Lou Barlow bass pop-punk with the highlights being Feel the Pain, Freak Scene, The Lung, Start Choppin, and The Cure’s Just Like Heaven.

GBV

Then headliners Guided by Voices took the stage around 10:30 p.m., in Dayton to celebrate the band’s 40 years for two nights of concerts. It was an inspired venue for sure, although the one negative thing to say is that the sound quality was not quite as great as I was hoping. Not bad, but only about a 7.5 out of 10. When we left our nosebleed seats and stood on the floor and then much-closer seats, the sound improved dramatically. GBV shows can sometimes be much longer than the approximately two hours of this Friday night show. Of the many highlights in the 38-song set, some of the tunes that stood out were Non-Absorbing as the only offering off the classic Vampire on Titus LP, My Kind of Soldier, The Best of Jill Hives, Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft, Everybody Thinks I’m a Raincloud, and Your Name is Wild.

J. Mascis

Scoots and I closed the night by buying some t-shirts and somehow getting the first Lyft before all the other hundreds of fellow out-of-towners who had gotten outside before us.