The Cure: Classic or Dud?

I have to say though, "This. Here and Now. With You" is kinda great.

the last two albums just don't sound good, bad mixing decisions, roger's keys all but absent. don't know what they were thinking. also, both albums entirely too long. great albums inside them though.

Roger wasn't on 4:13 Dream at all! That was when he and Perry Bamonte were "let go" from the band and Porl Thompson was back in. Now Roger's back and Porl is out, and Perry will probably never come back. A shame, as that was a decent line-up. Not exceptional, like the classic 1985-1992 line up, but still decent.

oh right. perry bamonte never felt like a real member of the band to me even though he was there for like 25 years. with porl was still around though.

And of course even that classic lineup is three different lineups.

ned, you going to the shoreline show?

I have a soft spot for the s/t album. The band sounds amazingly young on that record. "Lost" feels like the work of a 19 year old

^^^ same, loved that record, felt like they regained a sense of dynamics after bloodflowers

In general, Simon writes a lot more than most people realize.

Hehehe... yeah, even the classic line-up was three different line-ups, although to be fair the "core" of the band remained the same: Smith, Thompson, Gallup and Williams... with Lol contributing very little, Roger in and out of the band after one LP, and Perry joining at the last minute before both Williams and Thompson left.

a transition from the likes of boris to jason cooper is just devastating imo

ned, you going to the shoreline show?

Sure was -- and frankly, was pondering the best ride down and back, but of course you're on the other side of the Bay!

In fact, thinking about it, the most underrated Cure line-up was probably the Smith/Tolhurst/Thompson/Thornalley/Anderson line-up circa '84.

a transition from the likes of boris to jason cooper is just devastating imo

It's a little weird to realize that Jason's the third-longest serving member of the band now!

As can be seen here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cure_personnel#Timeline

Yeah, I was just about to mention that... but at the same time, he's played on about as many Cure studio records as Boris or Lol did!

(Sticking strictly to drums contributions and excepting Lol's keyboard contributions, if any)

if you asked me the name of the cure's drummer I'm quite sure 'jason cooper' isn't a name I would remember, not would I ever associate that name with someone in the Cure. Poor guy.

Yeah, Boris is undoubtedly the first person I'd think of if someone asked me to name one of the Cure drummers. In a way, I kinda feel sorry for Jason in the sense that he joined the band at a time when gaps between albums were starting to get longer and longer, and he's spent quite a lot of his time in The Cure replicating Boris' and Lol's parts live. They haven't really created a sizeable body of work during his lengthy time in the band, and weirdly, I don't think a lot of Cure fans have taken to his drumming even after all this time. On the other hand, he's in The Cure, playing gigs to large crowds and probably earning a truckload of money.

I don't think Jason's ever really looked the part either... I remember seeing one press photo circa 4:13 Dream where the whole band were clad in their regulation Curewear, with the make-up and all that. Of course, Robert, Simon and Porl pulled it off as well as they ever did, but Jason just looked daft and uncomfortable.

Played "Disintegration" for the first time in ... probably a decade, the other day, and loved it.

And it did prompt me to ponder that I don't think I've ever seen "Robert Smith not being Robert Smith" ... by which I mean I have a sense of who he is and he's always been that.

Watch the videos to 'A Forest' or 'Play For Today', and marvel at the way Smith looks like an ordinary bloke in a post-punk band, as opposed to the more familiar birds nest hair and make-up that's become his trademark look.

Jason Thudfist is actually the second-longest running member of The Cure ever - Simon has left at least twice during Jason's tenure (there was a proper break around the Cogasm / Wrong Number period, and iirc an invisible-at-the-time dummy spit over Ross Robinson's involvement in The Cure).

my ticket:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aVVIi1wa0l6LgVm4ZZ1x1PXOFQNR_oIP0g1o7VsEpy6N8rCOD__TGriCNyMBTu-fSemPHJWsvTqLTRObvM-sNKKn9HvcjdNP8QBM4dCitsRyqH_Gg5RdeFmi3HUWi_BloYj8LYAVzTonupr6nrY4p6JLFV6UZY8GU7C9z-mUA5UhZYECyt_DxkMzLxtKVPhNsWcl2bzPgHpsyKH2Aqcdp_yG9uU5RKDl_pdk0JG5z46tXo0axT7FJ-IlT4JTL0PIQRbGhzNJWDw_NhV8mp9bHWtaf4GKrS1HuXoQ_6PgEirJMKhMGut9iCCiZQHwQh7nIhkg8m6Pu-LNc6dhNcpjnGvFc9NPCeiKlgQPyLQWBeKF8_S6qYia7aG3RmwWTuGkglBAUi3LoU-ZkFDVchHmcTCW8LdK6dflPc3UZxX7DHb55JYbW1Yq2jcX1LnT4mOGnlJrNF66VuRlZDmEj0L7fnyDEB23mIPGOWZ9VNohRa4MeBijHev2epWur6j-4nmdxotyc38Jm5aXgamh1XPUlkIrgNsr56Mka46eV_CFpZg=w835-h470-no

Robert says they've decided to do different songs both nights, although we don't know that yet. :) So all of the usual suspects that were skipped last night, probably expect them tonight?

oh wow, i will have no idea what they are going to play by the time my show comes around. so excited, this is right around my birthday. so im being pampered, which mainly means i don't have to drive. win-win.

I try hard not to think about Tony Soprano when I see pics of Robert these days. I was going to post a photo but I decided it was a cheap shot (as if the comment's not a cheap shot already). And to clarify, I say this as an obsessive Cure fan up to (but definitely not including) Wish, though I also love the Trilogy DVD.

So, this is basically going to be the greatest tour, ever...

The Cure start with "Plainsong" tonight. They also played "A Night Like This" and "This Twilight Garden."

if they play those songs at my show. i could die a happy man. i also have no idea what songs they are going to play in their encoreS.

how can someone not love Wish

What a crazy goddamn setlist:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2016/kiefer-uno-lakefront-arena-new-orleans-la-5bf16b14.html

wow. looking forward to the shoreline show a lot. haven't seen them in ... 12 years? whenever that tour with Mogwai and some crappy bands was.

Curiosa. Which I avoided because why do I want to see a Cure festival set when I could have the real thing. As it were. (Mind you, that tour is where Ben and Aly met that eventually led to School of Seven Bells, so it was all worth it for that.)

listening to the S/T record for the first time since it came out and I kinda dismissed it. I am really enjoying it! getting super stoked about seeing em in LA on the 24th and working through the discography backwards. for a band that has been around forever its a pretty manageable body of work just looking at the LPs.

hoping they'll play Jupiter Crash on this tour.

The Cure start with "Plainsong" tonight. They also played "A Night Like This" and "This Twilight Garden."
― Bee OK, Wednesday, May 11, 2016 11:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if they play those songs at my show. i could die a happy man.

otm X 1000

Atlanta if you're reading robert

Ahhhh i can't wait to see them ahhhhh and yah Jason sucks

I saw them on the Curiosa fest and thought they were pretty good (a little before that I saw them in a club behind Bloodflowers; they were great). But then I saw them at a bigger place, as a 4-piece, in 2008, and was not feeling it for some reason.

Last time I saw them was 2008 in LA -- four-piece lineup as mentioned, their non-keyboard years, and I liked it for that reason. Stellar set and the new songs were great. I think for sheer stately wonder my favorite time seeing them was the Rose Bowl 1992, though I would have loved to have been at Dodger Stadium 1989.

my favorite show was the medium-sized stage tour they did in... 1998? I was in the 8th row for that one and it was fantastic

Yeah, anyone who caught that one I'm quite envious of. The other one I wish I had seen was the Reflections tour in LA but other factors prevented me from going, sadly.

ah, it was 1997: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/1997/orpheum-theatre-boston-ma-33d7e02d.html

hoping they'll play Jupiter Crash on this tour.

would lose my shit

are you talking about the pantageas show ned? yah i was there it was amazing.

i sorta love wild mood swings though. i was obsessed with it in high school bc i tended to be drawn to records that fanbases majorly hated

yeah Wild Mood Swings was my first Cure album that I paid attention to on release. Like, I bought The 13th CD single before the album dropped, and got WMS on release day. I feel that process of anticipating and being there when a new album comes out and hearing it fresh without any weight of history or consensus or reviews or anything is the best part of being a fan of any group.

My favorite is Jupiter Crashes, but I love Mint Car because its The Cure at their brightest and shiniest. I also have a lot of love for The 13th. Maybe my favorite Cure song with horns? Really the only song I actively dislike is Round & Round & Round. I also don't like that so many of the songs just have one word titles because it makes them hard to remember by name.

i loooove "the 13th"

Yeah, 'The 13th' easily one of my favourites on the album! 'Jupiter Crash' never really did all that much for me.

are you talking about the pantageas show ned? yah i was there it was amazing.

Very envious! Yeah I knew a number of people who went. Would have been a treat; I have a couple of good bootlegs from the various shows around the world.