Cursive at the Horseshoe; Saturday August 1, 2009

Cursive at the Horseshoe; Saturday August 1, 2009

Tim Kasher is definitely one of my favourite artists of the last ten years. He will be thirty-six years old by the end of the month. I can tell that he's worn out, in the sense that he has past experiences that really amount to the finish product of his lyrics.

Last night I discovered I really, truly only love two full Cursive albums. 'The Ugly Organ' and one half of 'Happy Hollow' and bits of 'Domestica'. Perhaps I like a bit of 'Mama, I'm Swollen' as well. Collectively, two albums i'd say. I really took love for his solo project The Good Life, especially the album "Album of the Year".

'The Ugly Organ' was really important to me in the tenth or eleventh grade. I remember when I was in grade eleven I had my fake ID and I really wanted to see Tim Kasher play with the Good Life. I probably would have had I known they would only play three gigs in the next six years in Toronto. Two times over with Cursive and once as the Good Life.

They were playing serious catch up time for not ever touring here, so i expected to hear a great array of their catalogue. I wasn't let down. They opened with "Big Bang" from their 2006 album 'Happy Hollow'. A very intense, horn charged tune. When I saw them two years ago they played with a larger horn section, this go round they only had one, instead of three. The horn player jumped from trumpet, to bugle and to keyboard. It was very evident that this guy was a trumpet player at heart, and knew some piano but I really wasn't remotely impressed by his keyboard skills.... Especially his organ bit at the bridge of one of the songs. It was actually horrible, especially after seeing Rod Argent (of the Zombies).

I was very happy with the song choices. Cursive's sound an organised-chaos. With the exception of the soft, pretty tunes they have like "Bad Sects" and "The Recluse", two songs they played. "Bad Sects" was perfect, I wouldn't have changed a thing. "The Recluse" felt too slow - it needed more push to it, it almost felt lazy.

My favourite tune they played was "A Gentleman Caller". It's absolute chaos but for the second half of the song it was absolutely perfect.

They also played "Driftwood: A Fairy Tale", "Art is Hard" and "Sierra" off of 'The Ugly Organ'.

They closed with "The Martyr" off of 'Domestica' which shocked me.