Appleseed Cast, Cursive, TerrashimaDublin Castle, London

Terrashima are the worst band I’ve seen for years, if not ever. They’re so bad I think I want to fight them. I don’t really know why, there’s just something about this particular combination of conceit and ineptitude that riles me. They’re punk, 1979 style. You know, punk as in ‘we’re fast, we shout, we serve no purpose in life other than to piss people off and no one has ever told us that we really shouldn’t bother’ kind of way. The worst way. Come back Blink182, all is forgiven. The guitarist’s t-shirt reads ‘live fast, die young’; the sooner the fucking better as far as I’m concerned.

So thank fuck for Cursive and the Appleseed Cast then. There’s none of this arrogant shit from them. Cursive are never gonna come round here acting like they own the place. Cursive don’t need to tell us good they think they are. We can tell how good Cursive are for ourselves. You can see it in the way that singer Tim Kasher stands there looking like Roddy Woomble’s older brother, wearing his broken heart on his sleeve. That may sound like a cliché, and who knows, maybe it is, but you should take every preconception you’ve ever had about an emo band, and leave them at the door. Cursive are emotive. They sing about the ups and downs of life. You can tell by the look in their eyes that they mean it, man.

On paper, there’s nothing to distinguish them from any other emo band, unless you count Gretta Cohn’s cello. But it’s what you feel in your heart and your head that counts. And deep inside, as ‘Sink To The Beat’ leaves you grinning like an idiot, you know that Cursive are nothing short of a revelation.

Such a revelation in fact, that the Appleseed Cast have trouble following them. Not that’s there anything wrong with Appleseed. It’s just that you haven’t had time to regain your composure before half of their set has washed over you. It’s all very pleasant. It’s all very loud. Maybe that’s the problem. Caught between the PA and the monitors, all I can notice is the immense volume. I hear guitars surging together. I can see Christopher Crisci singing. I can’t hear him, but he’s singing anyway. All the songs sound the same. I know they probably aren’t, it’s just that to my untrained ear, being unfamiliar with the band, I wouldn’t recognise anything if you played me the albums straight after the gig. By the time they encore with ‘Fishing In The Sky’ and ‘Marigold & Patchwork’, it all makes sense, but it’s almost too late. They’re post-hardcore kids turned shoe-gazers. The only comparsion that makes it through the haze is Juno. This is a good thing. It’s just I can only give so much of myself in one night, and tonight I’ve already given my heart to Cursive.