When a band have been going 10 years, there’s only a certain number of variables that can keep a gig exciting – both for the audience as well as for themselves. For Seattle’s Posies, a rare band that sound like their name implies, it’s certainly not the choice of songs. As those who witnessed their Irish gigs a week previous will attest, with a sizable chunk of the set dedicated to material from the new album Every Kind Of Light plus the usual suspects like power-pop ode ‘Grant Hart’, they’re playing it safe. Yawn yawn yawn.
Instead, switching from on-stage drinking of Jameson’s (in the Republic) to vodka (in London) is the way to keep the thrill, so it seems. Either that or they’ve a natural tendency to tear into songs with a progressively rising passion. The fun continues into the encore when co-frontman Ken Stringfellow bounces onstage in only some rather fetching grey underpants, adding an unexpected twist to the playing of their seminal hit ‘Solar Sister’.
Swapping their bubblegum rock for the sombre epic that they love on occasion, his new (lack of) attire doesn’t quite suit closer ‘Burn & Shine’, but as it’s other co-frontman Jon Auer’s baby, it matters less.
In fact, that song only proves their breadth: in any situation they’ve got the ‘been there done that’ t-shirt that younger bands are trying frantically to collect before they’re cast to one side – yet it’s only when the full set’s acquired that you have the real freedom of wearing nothing at all.