By the time Creepoid's set ended and Cursive was ready to take the stage out back of the small bar hosting one of the Sound on Sound preview shows, the patio was packed with fans — some just wanting to see "The Recluse" and "Sierra," while others stood eagerly awaiting the entire set. With a handful of other exclusive pre-fest concerts going on that night (including Guided By Voices just down the street), the folks at The Sidewinder that night weren't just there for a free show. The entire crowd was there specifically to see Cursive, and just about all of them — particularly those who took part in one of the most polite mosh pits ever seen during "Art Is Hard" — would be watching the band for a second time the next day when they took to the Ren Faire-themed main stage (complete with a massive fire-breathing dragon) to play their actual festival set.

"The intimacy is just so much better," Kasher says. "For big shows, it's about everyone being on their game and relating to as many people as possible. We're not going to play to thousands of diehard Cursive fans. We're going to play to a lot of people who are like 'Oh, my brother listens to Cursive' or people who are just there to see 'The Recluse' so you just want to play well."

In the last handful of years, getting the chance to see Cursive live in a setting big or small isn't a common treat. The geographically separated group hasn't exactly been a full-time band recently, but fans can't really blame them for only going on one real tour (a 2015 trip celebrating the deluxe reissue of The Ugly Organ) since supporting 2012's I Am Gemini. Kasher also juggles a solo career and The Good Life, and the entire band recently launched their own label, 15 Passenger Records — which happens to be releasing Kasher's latest solo album in March. But as busy as they are, no one in Cursive is interested in calling for a breakup or "indefinite hiatus" for the third time in the band's 22-year career.

"Whenever we do these one-offs, we're always chagrinned and pleased that people anticipate it so much," Kasher says.

"I think it's surprising to us every time," Maginn adds. "We haven't really talked about anything tour-wise, but I think we'll go out sometime again."

"We're back to being a band in our own slow way," Kasher says. "With my third solo record coming out, that's where my headspace is going to be for a while, but Cursive has never really fallen off of the back burner for me. I think we're just going to keep meeting up every few months or so, and then I think in maybe a year or two we'll start meeting up in more than one city at a time."

Part of the fun for longtime Cursive fans is wondering which version of the group they're going to get. The band's most beloved album (The Ugly Organ) features a very prominent cello, while several of their most iconic songs feature a wide array of near-cacophonous sounds in a similar manner to At the Drive-In, Brand New, or even early-2010s Kanye. Depending on the era, fans have seen Cursive with everything from a straightforward lineup of four to the full album-quality sound of a sextet once again featuring a cellist Megan Siebe and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Newbery.

"We put a lot of effort into [appropriately replicating album sounds] for a given tour or a given show, and I feel great about this current lineup," Kasher says as an employee of the venue in a floor-length Game of Thrones-like dress pokes her head into the tent to check on everyone. "For a lot of years, we toured as a stripped-down traditional four-piece even though we haven't recorded that way since [2000's] Domestica, so we'd be playing stuff from The Ugly Organ, Happy Hollows, and [I Am] Gemini without all of the parts. I think it's still a good show, but it's different. You have to retool the songs, and it's a whole different approach. We always very much want to be a live band, and I think we've been able to maintain that as well. You don't want to be that band where people walk away saying 'That was boring. You can just go listen to the record because it sounds exactly like that.' That's never good."

"You have to do a good job, but I do not like it if it sounds just like the record," Maginn adds. "You have to add something different to it."

"I'm always amazed at how many sounds Patrick can make," Siebe chimes in. "He's got a whole box of tricks in there. It's great."