Dayton’s Hospitality Shines for Heedfest 13

Another glorious long weekend of Guided by Voices cover bands, fan friend reunions, swag exchanges, and Miller Lite guzzling has come to its electrifying conclusion. Here are the venues that helped visitors from around the world feel right at home in Dayton.

Barrel House

Barrel House may be a craft beer bar, but for Heedfest they make sure to have plenty of Miller Lite on hand. GBV fans are increasingly crafty, however, and they had plenty of options to choose from.

This year, Barrel House served all drinks in DORA cups, which helped people enjoy their pop-up back patio. And the side of the building got an upgrade with a mural featuring both Bob Pollard and Zapp (possibly the best funk band ever).

GBV’s own Mark Shue took on an entire night of live DJing with an all vinyl set spanning decades, genres, and vibes. Here he is wearing the friendship bracelet I made for him that says August by Cake (GBV album from 2017 – Mark is on the cover!).

Yellow Cab Tavern

One of the best parts of Heedfest is hearing your favorite songs played by some of the best cover bands ever. They’re so amazing that they can even play in front of members of GBV, including Bob Pollard.

Pulled up right by the door was a convenient Miller Lite trailer. Yellow Cab definitely understands this crowd.

Yellow Cab Tavern Kitchen did a fantastic job helping everyone build a base with slices of pizza, pretzel bites, and wings.

Blind Bob’s & Lily’s

Heedfest 13 at Blind Bob’s – Photo by Tim Bugbee

Unfortunately, both Lily’s and Blind Bob’s suffered kitchen fires right before hosting Heedfest brunch, trivia, and music. They still managed to offer plenty of drinks and hospitality – including pointing people in the direction of great carry out and delivery in the area.

Downtown Dayton

I know it wasn’t just for Heedfest, but earlier in August, Downtown Dayton Partnership put up these amazing banners throughout the city featuring Zapp on one side and Bob Pollard on the other.

They even placed a mural version on the wall of Barrel House.

For how beloved and renowned Guided by Voices is throughout the world, they have historically received little local recognition. This definitely makes my heart happy.

Heedfest (Taylor’s Version)

One fun thing about Heedfest is that people put a lot of effort into creating swag to hand out and it’s amazing how creative GBV fans are. For all these years, I could never think of anything to make but have been so fortunate to receive so many amazing items like patches, pins, shirts, and last year even a license plate holder.

This year, however, I watched the Eras Tour film and saw fans with all these friendship bracelets and it hit me – I could definitely make these for Heedfest. GBV has its share of eras, too, and plenty of album names, song titles, key lyrics, noteworthy phrases, and side project band names to draw from for ideas.

By Heedfest, I had almost 80 to hand out. I was so happy that I had the chance to give one to Bob himself (ESP Ohio).

Who knows, maybe my friendship bracelet enterprise (I’m calling it Needmore Beads) will make even more for next year. Every time Heedfest ends, I’m just blah waiting for the next one, so it helps to have a project.

Want more Heedfest? Read all about last year’s: Heedfest XII. Read all of my GBV-related articles.