The Cure: Classic or Dud?

this band are on F-I-R-E O-N tour right now

seven new or unreleased-as-studio-versions songs last night - a full albumsworth in playing time. and Doing The Unstuck in the hits section!

had PRETTY good seats tbh

Had some thoughts

https://www.patreon.com/posts/some-weekly-78-83927014

Yeah the Portland show was fantastic. How does he still sound so good.

^ DJP and Reeves’ wife to thread iirc

tonight

Been trying for last minute tickets, and man, does Ticketmaster suck. The second a ticket goes live, I click on it, and ... it says a fan beat me to it. So I refresh the page, and the same fucking seats are listed, the ones I missed out on. Huh? Another time there were rock star seats that went live, I missed out, then five minutes later ... they were back. Another time I had two ticks in my cart and went to pay and ... nothing happened. Just didn't process when I clicked the button. What is the business model for a fucked up site?

For the St Paul show it was easier to buy two tickets than one, but I ended up getting a not-bad club level seat. I read that there's a way to use a different browser to start (but not complete) a purchase of a group of seats, leaving one in a row, and then purchasing the one seat in your main browser... but I've never tried it, so I don't know if it works.

How was it geoffreyess?

Looks like I missed a great set here, 31 songs, two tour debuts, including "Like Cockatoos," which is a bummer, but the ticket hustle is just not worth it anymore.

i missed it as well because i too didn't have the energy to deal with the ticket situation.

How was it

Pretty great, first time seeing them. Though had to leave during the 2nd encore (at the 2.5 hour mark!) and apparently missed Friday I'm in Love, Close to Me, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven & Boys Don't Cry, lol. Maybe next time. Robert Smith sounds great, I enjoyed his self-conscious thinking-out-loud style of banter, and was continually amazed how good the band sounds pulling from any era, whether "Play for Today" or "Plainsong." But honestly the new songs were the highlights, loved "Alone," "Nothing is Forever" and "Endsong," hadn't seen any clips previously but they go well beyond "Disintegration Redux" for me, though would have to hear again to say how.

Nice new piece by Nabil Ayers

https://fortune.com/2023/06/21/robert-smith-the-cure-ticketmaster-inflation-revenge-spending-taylor-swift/

Bit the bullet to see them at Riot Fest in September. The set won't be as long, but whatevs.

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-cure-were-full-of-surprises-at-final-msg-show-night-3-setlist-video/

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"You're gonna be surprised!" Robert Smith told the Madison Square Garden crowd on Thursday night at the start of The Cure's final encore. "Maybe not at first, but you will be!"

This was the final show of the band's three-night MSG run and fans in attendance, at least ones who have been looking at other setlists on this tour, already knew something was up. Almost always on this tour, the main set and first encore are made up of The Cure's moodier material, with the extended second encore all the pop hits. On Thursday night they dropped "In Between Days" and "Just Like Heaven" into the main set. My friend and I turned to each other immediately, asking "What is going on?!?"

We'd find out after "Boys Don't Cry," which is usually the last song of the night. They then went into an extended dip into early classics with "Jumping Someone Else's Train" leading straight into "Grinding Halt," both of which made their tour debut on Thursday, followed by "10:15 Saturday Night" and "Killing Another" (aka a reworked, both musically and lyrically, version of "Killing an Arab").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcb19i7sWfQ

I saw MSG #2 on Wednesday. Bummed I missed Jumping Someone Else's Train, but Weds had a few gems they didn't play the other 2 nights.

It looks like they've been front loading the shows with lots of longer songs, new songs, fan favs, and album tracks, with a few moody hits like "Pictures of You" and "The Forest" every so often. Then they bust through a 30-minute rapid-fire "greatest hits" set for the 2nd encore (which feels more like a 3rd set).

I saw last night’s set @ Merriweather Post Pavilion between Baltimore and DC. 2 hrs 1/2 or more strong set but no “Jumpin”, “Grinding,” or “Killing.” Robert Smith was wearing a “Omar’s Comin’” t-shirt in a nod to the filmed in Baltimore show “The Wire”

Last date on the US tour and they break out Love Cats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1KWU9w3DRY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw52SlwKaRI

In Philly my wife got her favorite Cure song "Burn" which was really emotional for her and I was so happy for her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdXlI6ZrVl8

I didn't get my favorite song "Killing an Arab" but they played it when we saw them here on the last tour 15 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUEgn0kPJoA

It's amazing how far phone camera technology has come since then!

https://consequence.net/2023/07/the-cure-record-setting-shows-of-a-lost-world-tour/

According to Billboard, The Cure’s “Shows of a Lost World Tour” sold 547,000 tickets for a gross of $37.5 million. Both numbers are new career bests: the band’s previous high-water mark for tickets sold in America was 402,000 in 1992, while they more than doubled the gross revenue of their 2016 jaunt ($18 million).

Despite these impressive totals, The Cure could have earned a lot more, but frontman Robert Smith intentionally left millions of dollars on the table so the band could offer reasonable priced tickets to their fans. Per Billboard, the average ticket price for the “Shows of a Lost World Tour” was $68.54 — 37% less than the average ticket price for the year’s other top tours.

It's called not being a greedy bastard, Consequence.net.

Heroes indeed.

Yep

just saw my kid in his drama school production of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and noticed that the sound bed they used for the witch was an extended intro to A Forest

wow, that's great!

I don't know if anyone remembers a remix called the Antidote Megamix - might have been one of the first well-thought-out remixes I ever heard.

At the line "Suddenly I stop," the guitar stops. When I was perhaps 20 or 21 and probably full of mood-altering chemicals, this blew my tiny mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c2Vvx3GXMM

(You can listen to the whole thing - and you should - but the moment I mentioned is about five minutes in.)

Thought that was going to be a video of the school play.

lol same

I got tricked by the On-U-Sound label and bought that as an excited teen

I was wondering about that. Is it not affiliated with the label?

I’m realizing now I got totally ganked by my friend who charged me $250 for her extra Cure ticket at the back of Madison Square Garden. I balked, but she assured me that was a reasonable price.

Some friend!

I’m not happy about it. But The Cure were good. I have no idea how 60-somethings have the stamina to do three 3-hour gigs at Madison Square Garden in a row.

Probably easier than when they were travelling in between the gigs on other days tbf

so, I came with an open mind but that Lol/Budgie single with James Murphy is really terrible, isn't it

I like the instrumental track - almost early Creatures in feel - but would've preferred another vocalist.

It sounds like it was written for Siouxsie

struggling to identify Lol’s contribution to it

just saw my kid in his drama school production of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and noticed that the sound bed they used for the witch was an extended intro to A Forest

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

Just read this -- wow.

I'm not deep in the weeds enough to know if the set was particularly notable, but they were great last night. Deep cuts (to me) were "Cold" and ... "At Night"? Might have dusted off "High" for the first time this tour, but I'm not sure, since that song is pretty popular, I thought. Also got "Fascination Street," which I don't think they've been playing much.

We got "High" in SF (if you will).

Weird, Setlist.fm has "High" as a tour debut last night, the only time played in 2023. They're usually good with that stuff. But I trust you!

Cold: 10th time in North America 2023, Street: 7th, At Night: 21st — and setlist.fm says Chicago was the first High (if you will)

xp!

Huh, so they've been playing At Night a lot more than Fascination Street?

Boy that's strange. Convinced I saw "High" at the Shoreline this year. (I did definitely see it in 2016 at the same venue, thus the possible confusion.)

Either way, I've only ever seen the band with Jason, but for whatever reason last night was the first time he really clicked for me. Felt like the MVP, in fact, Bob aside.

Yeah Jason has now really figured out his place in the band’s sound and is fantastic