Cursive and mewithoutYou played the Paradise – 5/14

A spring tour triumvirate of emo and post-hardcore stalwarts featuring co-headliners Cursive and mewithoutYou alongside openers The Appleseed Cast hit Boston’s Paradise last week. 

Like the best co-headlining tours, last Tuesday’s team-up brought together a pair of bands whose appeals intersect without wholly overlapping. Cursive’s dramatic heart-on-sleeve missives and mewithoutYou’s literate complexity court differing forms of emotional catharsis, but there’s a good chance that a fan of one could quickly be sold on the other.

The two fanbases assembled last week, first to the strains of an excellent opening set by Kansas vets The Appleseed Cast. The four-piece prefer their midwest emo with a post-rock twist, and as a band who’ve escaped my radar for years now, they had me captivated during this all-too-brief appearance.

Tim Kasher’s Cursive took the stage next, running through a set that highlighted last year’s Vitriola – their strong return from a six-year LP hiatus – while touching on most other corners of their discography too. Kasher played ringleader with his characteristic magnetism while the band – including key cellist Megan Siebe – churned through a tight set that made efficient use of a not-so-long set time. I’ll be satisfied with any Cursive set that breaks out “Some Red-Handed Sleigh of Hand,” but this was a killer one front to back.

mewithoutYou closed out the evening in a similarly career-spanning fashion, mixing cuts from last year’s acclaimed [untitled] with favorites from the rest of their nearly two-decade career. A run-in with a few weirdly aggressive fans in this fervent crowd aside, it was a strong note on which to end the night.

See photos from the whole evening below.