Cursive / Engine Down / Minus The Bear

live in Orlando (2003)

Kevin11

Ahh, saddle creek season in Orlando, over the past 3 months, every active band on their roster has graced the stage at the social, except the faint, who play may 2nd.

Anywho, this show was sold out, a solid crowd of 475 or around there, typical emo/ indie crowd, purses with pins, long hair on the dudes with matching thrift store jackets. and girls with shirts with such witty phrases as "Princess" and "Thursday".

The First band of the night was seattle's Minus The Bear, aside from having one of the coolest names in rock, this band put on a solid set, almost all of the songs played resembled Cursive's slower jams. The crowd seemed into them as well, overall a good time.

Next up, was quite possibly the worst spectacle in rock history, Engine Down, from the first note, it became one of the most boring sets in music this side of the Juliana Theory. I think these dudes thought they were Radiohead, i fell asleep alot during this band, awful. All of their songs had an Outro somewhere in the range of 3 minutes, just feedback and open string playing. I had no idea what was going on…BOOOO for this band.

So Cursive was up next, but i lost all excitement after seeing the last band, the intro to the Ugly Organ played after a little bit, and the band, predictably jammed into "Red Handed Slight Of Hand" . This shit was so cool, they played a good mix of both old and new tunes, including "The Casualty", "The Recluse", "Driftwood" and "The Martyr", an hour set overall. The great set was capped by Tim's surprising clever between-song banter (usually cleverness is reserved for more…light-hearted fellows) He seemed much happier than his "kill me now" persona he portrays in his songs. Anywho, Cursive was amazing, the addition of a cello= FANTASTIC. they "finished up" with Art is Hard, then Tim said he's not gonna pretend like they are leaving, so they just stood there for about 30 seconds and blasted into more songs. Finishing up with (oddly enough) "Staying Alive" off of the Ugly Organ, a 10 minute epic that finishes off the album. Gone from the live version however was the 5 minute "Do Do Do Do, the worst is over" choir part, if you've heard the song, let me tell you, they make is sound amazing, Tim and the other guitarist played while crowd surfing, then the other dude got on the floor and started emo-ing out, it was fucked up, i think he was crying. whatever though.

Overall a fantastic show, but if you're gonna go, make sure engine down doesn't show up .