LIVE: Cursed Bring Their Night Terrors To Lee's
Monday March 24, 2008 @ 04:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Cursed
March 22, 2008
Lee's Palace
By Kate Harper

Lee's Palace seemed like a bit of an odd choice for a hardcore show. For starters, hardcore is traditionally known for close audience/band interaction, and the high stage at Lee's has the potential to act as a barrier between performers and spectators. But by the end of Cursed's CD release party, it was obvious this wasn't the case.

Living Darkness kicked things off and it's really too bad Lee's wasn't full by that point. While the rest of the band were static and stood in the same place throughout their set, vocalist Adam flailed and jumped around the stage, turning their show into an interesting spectacle. At this point, there weren't nearly enough people to get a pit going. But if the band had more people to work with, they would have had no problem.

50watthead were dull in comparison. Their mixture of slow, sludgy metal and hardcore vocals nearly lulled the crowd to sleep. They weren't nearly as energetic as they should have been and by the time Career Suicide took the stage, people were more than ready to get going.

Hilariously, Career Suicide vocalist Martin Farkas told a fan to "shut up" halfway through their set, which only made the fan and the audience more rowdy. Although their hardcore had more to do with Minor Threat and less to do with metalcore than any of the other bands on the bill, they fit in and raced through material from 2007's Attempted Suicide. When Farkas announced they wouldn't be playing an encore, the crowd seemed bummed.

Although Cursed played for no more than 40 minutes, it's doubtful anyone in the audience noticed the shortness of their set. Guitarist Christian McMaster is still recovering from an extreme bout of carpal tunnel syndrome that left both his wrists in casts, but he soldiered on and Cursed blew everyone away.

The set kicked off with "Fatalist" from 2005's II. From there, they moved on to a brutal thrash/speed/hardcore combo in "Night Terrors" from the recently released III: Architects Of Troubled Sleep. The crowd also ate up that disc's "Magic Fingers" and "Into The Hive." Vocalist Chris Colohan introduced the latter as being about rents that are too high and "people who want to compartmentalize everything" into little boxes.

There's something extremely down-to-earth and refreshing about Colohan. He engaged the audience throughout the set, thanking them for being there and introducing the new and old songs for those who may not have been familiar with Cursed's material. Colohan also knows how to work a crowd and it's obvious he loves performing. Here, the high stage actually worked in his favour. He wandered off the stage and on to its wooden abutments several times, getting as close to the crowd as he could. The fans loved this and surrounded around him whenever he turned his microphone into the crowd, giving them the chance to get their ya-yas out.

Older songs like "1974" and "Opposable Thumbs" from 2003's I were also well received. Since Cursed haven't played "1974" live for a while, Colohan's introduction elicited a roar from longtime fans. II's "Head Of The Baptist" and the slow, angry dirge of III's "Friends In The Music Business" finished things. By the time Cursed left the stage, everyone seemed genuinely satisfied with what they'd witnessed. If Cursed can have a crowd at Lee's Palace frothing at the mouth, they should have no problem at shows throughout the rest of Ontario, Quebec and Europe from now until May.