The Posies

Knitting Factory - September 8, 2005

Live Review by Daniel Brody

The Posies were a band in the wrong rock town during the wrong rock era.  While Seattle was busy sheathing the world in flannel and grungifying radio away from hair metal, the Posies created pretty power pop ditties that only vaguely hinted at hard rock influences.  Armed with their Garfunkely background harmonies and power pop punch, the band didn't stand a chance against depressive local contemporaries like Alice in Chains.  To drive the point home, the Posies spent most of the nineties backing Alex Chilton as part of a Big Star reunion tour.  This was a band determined to win fans on its own terms, regardless of proximity to local trends.

It is this history of bucking trends that makes the Posies' recent live performance at the Knitting Factory so inexplicable.  The band, blasting its instruments at top feedback volume, seemed determined to revise the past by playing its catalogue as loudly as possible. This meant, of course, that background vocals, pretty guitar arpeggios, and lovelorn lyrics got buried beneath the screech of an amplifier set on eleven.  Why, oh why?  For a metal band this might make sense, but beautiful ballads and ditties like "Flavor of the Month" and "Dream All Day" sounded amateurish, their distinguishing craftsmanship lost amid a shrill squall of noise.  The older fans who probably remembered the songs the first time around didn't seem to mind; they pogoed regardless, and perhaps retrieved fantastic memories amid the clamor.  It's not as if the band lacked energy; fans rushed onstage during the show's conclusion, and co-singers Jonathan Auer and Ken Stringfellow brought their microphones and guitars into the audience for a few songs.  But every song sounded like a Sonic Youth caricature of cacophony.  Where were the tunes?