Don Gaines

skipped the first band, The See. They’re Little Rock natives that everyone seems to love but after a few quick listens on myspace decided I wasn’t really into them. *Not saying I dislike them, just that I didn’t really feel like taking the time to listen to them today. Maybe at another time. You can check out their myspace here.

Up next we had the ol Capgun Coup. Not a bad set. I’ve heard their name and they’re on Team Love (which has a free album of theirs to download if you signup for their ‘library’). They’re set was noisy and entertaining. The last song they did was a cover of an old Cursive song that pretty much solidified in my mind the idea of modern indie music being all about self deprecation. Self deprecation isn’t necessarily a bad thing but too much of it just gets annoying. I think also at this point I realized most indie/hipster shows are all about the show, the performance if you will. They’re not really about engaging the audience. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel I’m a part of that group but I just really didn’t feel engaged. The best I can compare it to, something I’m more familiar with, is a hardcore show. At these indie shows I just don’t feel a sense of unity. It’s just standing around thinking about whatever you think about, I guess how ironic everything is (more irony to come).

Cursive took the stage. I couldn’t tell you what song they opened with first but the second song was Butcher the Song from The Ugly Organ. They went on to play a few more, probably from Mama I’m Swolen, but I’m not very familiar with that album yet so I’ll give you my highlights. They did play 4-5 tracks off The Ugly Organ and closed with A Gentlemen Caller which was brilliantly done. Art is Hard made an appearance and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. I feel like Cursive has a lot of punk and early emo in their music and wish the crowd had been a little more rowdy. Mostly just head bobbing and whatnot. One of the shining moments came from What Have I Done. Though not familiar with this song the lyrics are incredible and the downtime for Kasher’s confession style waling was beautifully constructed. If there’s such a thing as love at first listen then this was it for me. The other huge moment for me was during Art is Hard and another song I don’t remember. I read a long time ago that The White Stripes had an incredible way of taking a song down to nothing and then bringing it back. A pure mess of chaos into beauty. I’ve seen Bright Eyes do this and Cursive was no let down. They went into what seemed to be the end of a song on Rock Band where you can just go nuts and get all these extra points. Cursive knows how to break the song into pieces, having every musician do their own thing and then bring it back into this cohesive piece. That’s a bright star in my book.

Now for the ironic part. Tim Kasher wrote The Ugly Organ after a divorce. It was if anything, an incredibly emo album. It’s well done and points out the irony of playing music that’s born from pain. It’s just sort of awkward to see a show, know why those songs were written and still see those songs get the most attention from the crowd, but I guess we all identify with pain. It’s a weird cycle that’s part of hipsterdom, at least as I understand it: It’s ironic that things are ironic which makes it more ironic so it’s just super ironic. Ironic huh?

Nonetheless, Cursive didn’t disappoint for their first appearance in Little Rock. I wish the crowd had been a bit more rowdy, maybe a little more participatory. I could envision kids crawling on top of each other to shout the lyrics to a lot of Cursive’s discography. Thanks for coming to see us fellas.

Oh and Tim, seriously, the whole tangent about having a small penis, completely unnecessary and kinda boring. Maybe if I was drunk I would’ve laughed?

Cursive- What Have I Done?

Cursive- A Gentlemen Caller