I was very excited to see Guided By Voices reunite for Matador's rather self important "21-Year-Anniversary-Festival" in Las Vegas. To be honest, I almost tossed my cookies when I saw "Matador" and "Las Vegas" in the same sentence, but what can you say? Sensitive music nerds in argyle sweaters who talk about their record collections and the glitz/madness of the nightclubbing Las Vegas set are a tough-mix to envision. With that being said, we'll give Matador credit for surprising the hell out of everyone with such an event, and more importantly, partying in style and doing something completely off the radar. It's also nice to see Robert Pollard continue to rock out in his old age. While Matador was a haven for great music in the 90's, it's interesting to see the majority of the current bands got swept under the rug by the old-school rockers like Pollard. Not that we're surprised by such a thing....
Here's a report of the event, courtesy of a random hipster who attended.
"Anyone who walked into the popular casino during the three-day venture witnessed a culture shock like no other as hundreds of well-established, middle-aged rockers filled the building to see label legends Sonic Youth, Pavement, Belle and Sebastian, Guided by Voices and more.
Performing inside the small and intimate Pearl, most of the bands were playing in Vegas for the first time.
"It has run smoothly but with a lot of help from the staff and all the people that are working for us," said founder of Matador Records, Chris Lombardi. "It's come together. We were very conscious of all the potential snafus that could arise and so far it's been fun."
[...The festival went so well, actually, that it's kind of surprising...]
That last sentence really got me. "The festival went so well, actually, that I felt that it was ironic." There that's better!
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