Show Pics: A Cure Tribute @ Cheer Up Charlies (3/4)

It was a busy weekend. There was a race going on out at COTA, there was house prep for the long run into downtown known as SxSW, a friend’s birthday and this little show that friends put together where several of my favorite local bands were covering Cure songs to benefit The Teenage Cancer Trust. Among participants, we get Bali Yaaah, Modern Medicine, Knifight with half of Night Drive, Moving Panoramas and many more…

Click through for a few thoughts on best-of performances and plenty of pics to see what you missed or relive a great night.

First, for a charity show with so many moving pieces, the night went rather smooth. Big ups to the organizers (Lucy The Poodle) and Cheer Up for pulling off what I considered to be a SxSW warm up show. Available to show goers was black lipstick, guy-liner and nail polish, brilliant. I didn’t really expect it, but it was pretty packed all night. Seems we weren’t the only ones all in for a night songs by The Cure, either faithfully reproduced or spun around a bit.

Standouts:

Bali Yaaah gave Marcus’s bass the room it needed for “Fascination Street”. As a bass player, you can’t get much more in the mix than on much of the Disintegration age Cure songs. He was happy to be the one that got to play that riff.

Modern Medicine absolutely owned “Disntegration”. It was probably my favorite song on the night. It had an added edge; it felt like if early punk Cure covered later dark wave Cure. Big power from guitar, nothing lacking and nailed down. I would love to see them do it as part of their regular set, but maybe just when I am at their show.

Moving Panoramas spun their set, pushing The Cure into a stripped down psych-rock groove. You know that feeling when a song is recognizable but foreign. That happened. Residual Kid picked harder edged songs with great effect. Hard to belive I have seen them so many times for so many years and they are still a half decade from getting rid of those big X’s on their hands.

Knifight invited Rodney from Night Drive to take vocal duties for their version of “The Walk”. A friend in attendance that is about as big a Cure as there can be was nervous for this. “The Walk” was a game changer, now his two favorite Austin bands were uniting for one of his favorite songs ever and they nailed it.

There may have been lyric sheets on stage, but they were there because nobody wanted to fuck up their favorite band’s songs. Can’t wait to do something like this again…