| |
Minus the Bear
Tim Kasher looks a bit out of it...
...perhaps he's just trying to play too damn many instruments?
|
| |
|
The evening started out innocently enough with the obligatory trip to the record store, and was destined to get even better when I arrived at the Echo Lounge, for my money the best indie rock venue in the Atlanta area. I was going to see three bands I greatly enjoyed, hang out with my usual set of friends, spend too much money at the merch tables and generally enjoy one of my increasingly rare free nights... but as with any concert I attend, there's always a hitch. Luckily, tonight's hitch was a relatively mild one -- I was on Minus the Bear's guest list, and the band didn't arrive until over an hour after doors opened, so in order to secure a spot in a growing to near capacity crowd, I had to make use of my "Splendid Expense Account" to get in, and had to fight the crowd of Tim Kasher devotees later that night to get half-decent photos.
Once Minus the Bear finally took the stage, none of this really bothered me, as the rock and roll goodness didn't let up for the entire evening. While the press has not been overly charitable to Minus the Bear's latest album (see our review of Highly Refined Pirates), I dig it, so I found their set to be quite enthralling, as did most of the audience. The highlight, of course, was the lead guitarist's finger tapping, and while its novelty wears off after a few songs, the strong vocals and crunchy hooks prove that there's more to Minus the Bear than mere gimmickry. Their set was short, to the point and overall excellent, especially considering the fact that they set up and played as soon as they arrived.
After a lengthy soundcheck, Engine Down engaged the audience in an extremely long but wickedly precise guitar deluge. The long wait paid dividends, as the band had the richest tones and cleanest vocals of the night. While their nebulous sounds are more suitable for headphone listening, the group's tightness and impassioned, synchronized guitar flailing made their set more enjoyable than one might have imagined. The highlight was a new song, which continued in the melodic direction of Demure and added a walloping, hooky chorus reminiscent of No Knife. Engine Down tore up the stage, but their set, at just under an hour in length, was a bit too much for me.
Cursive emerged with a man in a gorilla suit (who turned out to be Engine Down's lead singer), and immediately ripped through two songs from their new LP, The Ugly Organ. If I've learned anything from my previous live experience with Cursive, it's that you never know what to expect from Tim Kasher and company. Lyrical reconfigurations, random screams and cello-infused reworkings are business as usual; each song will sound different each time you see the group. Surprise number one was a borderline bastardization of "The Radiator Hums", in which Kasher swapped his guitar for a keyboard and toned his vocals way down. This might have worked had Ted Stevens abandoned his guitar's biting harmonics, but they remained intact and seemed to compete with Kasher's soulful keyboard for which direction the song would take. Equally awkward was the reinterpretation of "Ceilings Crack", in which the newly-added keys were jarringly out of place and Steven's backing vocals were loud and flat. When the gorilla-suited guy re-entered the fray for a feedback-laden rap song, it really looked like Kasher had gone off the musical deep end, but he quickly rallied, reeling the audience back in with a couple of standards from Domestica. Cursive finished the night with "Staying Alive", a song that translates much better to the live setting, and while they certainly threw the audience for a loop, the good far outweighed the bad. Most audience members were smiling as they left the club.
Article and photos by Phillip Buchan.
|
