Tim Kasher
PhilaMOCA
531 N 12th St.
Philadelphia
May 29, 2026
The emo veteran Tim Kasher’s tour stopped in Philly last Friday for a low key but well-attended gathering for fans of Cursive and The Good Life. For me, this show was a welcome experience with a little surprise from Old Canes, the solo project of Chris Crisci of the Appleseed Cast. My emotional connections to both acts underpinned the show itself, grounding and reminding me of a younger time in my life defined by my friend, who was also named Chris, still being alive and yammering my ear off about Kasher’s lyricism, and the night I skipped prom to go see The Appleseed Cast play in Washington DC.
Instead of the very atmospheric and melancholy emo that Crisci has been known for, Old Canes play what is essentially folk punk. If you have been going to shows since at least the 2010s or before, even if you love folk punk, you know that it can be quite insufferable. Old Canes are not that. There were no bare feet on stage, no over-exaggerated vocal styles, unnecessarily included antiquated instruments, or collective stench indiscernible in origin from band or audience. It was just acoustic guitar and rollicking rhythms on a muted drum set with shakers and tambourines from an accompanying drummer. And a sole harmonica appearance! No devolution into StompClapHey! territory, praise God. Old Canes doesn’t insist upon itself, and I liked that.
Family Guy | Peter does not care for The Godfather
Tim Kasher took the stage looking very bluesy with his semi-hollow body guitar and made a nearly unthinkable request of no AC onstage. Sure, it’s been generally temperate these past few days, but for late May, this request is downright unheard of. As he moved through a catalogue of selected works from Cursive, The Good Life and his own solo venture, the very dedicated audience consistently stayed in step with him, singing key parts in songs that Kasher reworked for solo performance. Throughout the set, he played along to drum and guitar loops before changing mid-song to drums and singing along to a guitar line he had spent the first half of the track playing. At times, Kasher’s banter felt as crucial to the performance as the songs themselves, sometimes turning into short conversations with audience members.
During the time when Cursive was still building its legacy, there were fewer avenues to communicate with your favorite artists, so people really had to milk their time to converse at the shows themselves. The way Kasher would hold court before, during, and after his sets really drove home that he’s a people’s champion, someone who knows that audience connection is the core tenet of his music’s intimacy. It was endlessly charming when he stopped mid-song, saying, “Yep I gotta start over! I knew I’d fuck that one up!” The interplay between him and the crowd felt much more like that of an acoustic living room show. Kasher oscillated between his emo croon and a sneer that informed the revelation of his influence by Elvis Costello. He said he’d endeavored to write an entire album in a single weekend after learning that Costello had once pulled off the amazing feat. The video below is of him playing the first song on that album.
Elvis Costello - Radio Radio - SNL original footage 1977 (first portion only)
