Guided By Voices – The Night The Buffalo Fell

Every year the Westword, Denver’s free weekly entertainment magazine, has a music showcase. It coincides with the magazine’s ballot for the best local musicians in each musical category. The magazine hosts a multi-venue showcase of some of the musicians on the ballot for only $5. There are also a few national headliners on the bill. On Saturday, June 21, 2003, one of the headliners was Guided By Voices.

I started my evening at a small club called Dazzle, walking in late for a performance by John Common, the front man of the local band Rainville, with Mary Beth Abella. Common was a good storytelling songwriter who was moving his band from an alt country sound to an indie rock outfit. This was a good stage for him to perform more intimately.

The next set was The Czars at the Acoma Center, a theater converted into a music venue for the evening. With local jazz trumpeter Ron Miles sitting in, they had an ethereal sound that immediately captured the audience. The sounds almost haunt the instruments they are played on. All the while lead singer John Grant has a beautiful tenor voice, which portrays a wealth of emotion.

Next, everyone moved to the outdoor stage centrally located in the middle of a parking lot for Guided By Voices. The band ripped into their quick indie rock. Song of song was assaulted upon the audience as the band drank a lot on stage. Lead singer Bob Pollard had a cooler of bottles of beer on stage. In between verses he would grab a bottle of beer, flipped it with the water fragments from the ice splashing on the audience, cracked open the beer and chug it before the next verse. This is a true skill when the songs are 3 minutes or shorter each. There’s barely time to drink a few beer during the entire song. He would down it during an instrumental break.

The rest of the band also drank. The most visibly inebriated band member was guitarist Nate Farley. He had a bottle of Jack Daniels that he swallowed during the set. He shared some of the bourbon with bassist Chris Slusarenko and the band’s roadie, Buffalo. During the set Farley went from near sober stance to completely drunk. It was surprising he could still stand up, although it did look like he might have been having trouble. Somehow he still was playing spotless guitar and trading solos from one song to another with guitarist Doug Gillard.

Buffalo was not a small man. He was tall and stout. And he was drunk. He began dancing around the stage, air guitaring along to the music. He was enjoying the set and the audience was enjoying him, but I don’t think he noticed the audience. He just danced and stole a few more swills of Farley’s whiskey.

As the alcohol kicked in, so did the band’s stage presence and attitude. Pollard decried that indie rock sucked. He beckoned, “Bring back arena rock. We want to play arenas, not parking lots.”

About to release their fourteenth studio album, Earthquake Glue, Pollard announced the song “My Kind Of Soldier” as their new single. Buffalo played air guitar around the stage to the song’s piercingly catchy guitar work. He got in front of Farley and strummed his imaginary guitar with his back to the audience. He was dancing and jumping backwards, towards the audience. Suddenly the oversized Buffalo fell of the front of the stage and landed on the asphalt of the parking lot. The band stopped playing. They stood on stage and made fun of their friend who lay on his back. The band continued to drink and joked, “I guess our new single’s a hit.” “Or maybe it’s a flop.”

It didn’t take too long for an EMT team to show up to administer to Buffalo. It also didn’t take long for the team to look at the drunken roadie and realize a second EMT team was going to be needed to get this guy on a stretcher and into the ambulance. After the ambulance drove off, the band continued their set.

Near the end of the set, a woman climbed up on stage and started dancing with Farley while he played. This seemed to confuse him. He drank so much that he was stumbling around the stage and this flirtatious lady was getting in his way. After a while, she gave up on the guitarist and moved on to Slusarenko. He played the last few songs of the set with this woman dancing and kissing him. As they band took their bow after the set, the dancing fan still had her arms around the bassist.

As the sun went down, I walked back to Dazzle to see Dressy Bessy. It was a great way to cap off the evening. The small venue was packed. And the music was upbeat and cheerful. The band donned huge smiles and vintage clothing as they played short pop songs rooted in 60’s rock.

Every band I saw played great sets. Four years later, though, the most memorable moment of the day was watching a drunken roadie named Buffalo air guitar his way off the stage and on to the parking lot tarmac.

Read the review of Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life by John Sellers
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Comments

[Ken]

I was at the music showcase this year and the Guided By Voices show is all I can remember....when that big drunk guy fell off the stage! I didnt know he was the roadie...I thought he was just an old friend. Funny your writing about this 4 years later and I am thinking about it today and found your story..four years later.

[The Wheel's Still In Spin]

That guy probably was just a friend and not a roadie. I thought I remembered Pollard referring to him as their roadie. Who knows, it was four years ago. It was one of the most memorable shows I've seen - and all because of the Buffalo's fall.