The Cure: Classic or Dud?

Read the statement wrong -- just the one date and Simon comes back. That's a curio of a show now!

Peter Hook: “Son replacing you, is it? That’s bloody mine and all! Prick’s been copying me for 40 years.”

They were very fun at Roskilde, and it's remarkable how gracefully Robert Smith has aged. He looks like my grandma when she was in her eighties, and it looks as if he really leans into it, and it's really rock'n'roll. It's also nice that they didn't have a mediocre new album they had to promote, and the Cure sound is just made for festivals.

is anyone from this board going to the show this weekend? i'm still not sure if i'm going because of everything that is going on with my life. any of those issues don't seem to outweigh that one BIG positive one. The Cure are playing one date in the United States this year, outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, and it's in my back yard. how can i not go to this show?

I'll be there dogg

You have to go

i saw them a couple of weeks ago and it was SO great. they are currently a finely honed machine.

I’m going. It’ll be fun. My main Q as an outoftowner is if the public transportation options are actually going to be workable

that is a good question. i was looking at getting to Union Station and getting there that way. the problem is getting home as most things seem to stop at that time of night. so to get home, if i got there via Union Station, is Uber.

Hit with a lot of expenses this month, but we're going to try for last minute closeout deals on StubHub.

24 hours and counting down.

...still don't know if i'm going.

go! they're always great live.

Bee OK, you gotta go.

it's going to, eh, be ok!

i know i really do need to go and i haven't seen the Pixies since the last time they opened for the Cure at Dodger Stadium in 1989. there is just this thing called life that is getting in the way. i'm trying tho.

at least a few of my friends went. the one I talked to afterward is one of the most rabid Cure fans I've ever seen. She was miserable in the heat all day but said their set about made up for it (and then she met some of the band at the hotel later that night including Robert). But I'm glad I opted not to fly down for this

My sistrah went

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2019/brookside-park-pasadena-ca-639f6a7b.html

The Cure, as you can see, played 27 songs over two and a half hours at the Pasadena Daydream Festival. Pixies also got a full set with a 25 songs. the BIG deal with the Cure part is they played "Just One Kiss" live for the first time ever in the United States. i could only find a three song clip but holy fuck is this good1

"Just One Kiss" starts at the four minute mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28L4CnT2XAI

BTW, i got sick and didn't make the show. mad about that as i watched the whole thing on YouTube and it looked and sounded fantastic.

Hope you were able to sell your tickets!

Robert announces three new vaporware albums to put on your imaginary shelf alongside 4:14 Scream, 4:26 Dream, Reflections, Live In Paris, his 1990 solo album, his 2001 solo album, the Wish deluxe reissue...

The correct approach to this news.

that link, when clicked by me at this point in time, does nothing except load endlessly into nothing.

what's the news?

Robert Smith is leading an Antarctic expedition

nice; surely on the hunt to recapture some of that chilly goth atmosphere for the forthcoming dark album.

worth clicking again to see how Jason has somehow become the oldest member of The Cure

I’m seeing them in Mexico City tonight!

The weather had been all nice and sunny for the past 4 days and today it has been cold and cloudy with a little bit of rain. Feels like it was on purpose.

ahh man! definitely looking forward to your review if you feel so compelled.

Of course! Cure has a passionate fanbase in Mexico, I’m very excited to see them here.

Enjoy Moka! If their Glasto show is anything to go by, you'll have a splendid time.

Yeah that link doesn't work for me either. What is it?

he said that they're preparing three albums. I saw the headline on the book of faces. I take it with a grain of salt.

ahh.

nme coverage.

yeah none of that sounds very promising at all, honestly.

hope i'm wrong and something new comes out and it's actually decent. but uhh. . . probably not.

Here's a Cure album that never was: my take on what sounds like a could-have-been, maybe was-going-to-be album circa 'Wild Mood Swings' but that focused in the aesthetic and mood with the through-line of string arrangements. Made from a few tracks from WMS and contemporaneous b-sides: 'This Is A Lie':

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGZch5NXkAAbgSb?format=jpg&name=large

https://www.mediafire.com/download/8f97pneclpg72ut

The Cure - 'This Is A Lie' (1996)
[The Wild Mood Swings Era Reconsidered]

01 - Adonais
02 - Jupiter Crash*
03 - A Pink Dream
04 - Treasure*
05 - Home
06 - Waiting
07 - Dredd Song
08 - It Used to Be Me
09 - Numb*
10 - Ocean
11 - Bare*
12 - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

Total Time: 53:43

* From 'Wild Mood Swings'

Get rid of Dredd Song and that would be 100% fire

Ok, they are incredibly tight live. It feels like listening to the actual album, some songs even sound better than the studio version.

I might be biased because they are two of my favorite Cure songs but “A Forest” and “Close to Me” were great and the band seemed specially lively playing those. Simon even did a small cumbia bass coda at the end of the former following the claps of the audience and Robert was doing some sort of dance and smiling throughout the later. Lovesong was also great and an early highlight in the setlist, they also seemed to be having fun playing Lovecats.

The only song in the whole setlist that they seemed miserable playing was Friday I’m In Love. I thought Just Like Heaven would also sound exhausted but they sounded very at ease with that one.

The second encore was filled with early songs that hadn’t been played in the American festivals they did beforehand this year: Three Imaginary Boys, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing an Arab, Jumping Someone Else’s Train were all played at the end.

wild mood swings era without 'want' is a bold, wrong move

I was focused on the string arrangement common thread, when I culled the selections for 'This Is A Lie'. If the synth strings in "Want" were real strings, I'd probably slot it in in lieu of "Dredd Song".

I really think the band could have been thinking of an album like this collection--so many of the tracks even have segue sections that help the tracks flow pretty seamlessly. An odd thing to bother with, for a b-side...

ahh man moka, you got 'lovecats'!!! sounds like a great night. would love to see them do 'gridning halt' as well. that song is so enduring and catchy!

if i ever see them i demand an hour-long 'watching me fall' followed by 'give me it' and then the curtain falls to booing

if i ever see them i demand an hour-long 'watching me fall' followed by 'give me it' and then the curtain falls to booing

would attend this.

Aw, they didn't play Lovecats when I saw them :(

It was its tour debut last night iirc.

Here’s the full setlist they played for almost 3 hours:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2019/foro-sol-mexico-city-mexico-339c4c8d.html

wow, that's a really varied setlist. must have been a total blast.

if i ever see them i demand an hour-long 'watching me fall' followed by 'give me it' and then the curtain falls to booing

RS would never concede to a set this short, they'll only compromise to cut down to two hours for festivals

that is an insane setlist. you must have had a blast Moka!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3i4ttvHocN/?igshid=12oxiuwbhn496

guys if fucking simon gallup dies, it will seriously be terrible.

i hope i'm reading too deeply into this and he's just fine.

V good new interview tied in with the release of the Anniversary/Cureation sets; it's the second part of a longer interview Kory Grow did with him a few months back:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/cure-band-robert-smith-interview-40-live-893005/amp/

Also should you be so inclined one of my projects on my Patreon is an album by album series Robert and company -- won't be monthly, maybe every other month or so. First one went live earlier in the week:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/cure-reflections-30754630

You’ve never been very political. Roger Waters, who played the day before you in Hyde Park, had a lot of anti-Trump messaging. Do you feel artists should be more political nowadays?
I don’t think there’s a rule. Some artists are very good at it. It requires a number of different things. One is the music that you make has to reinforce where you’re going with what you’re saying. And from a young age, I’ve always held what could be considered a socialist viewpoint on the world. That’s why I wail against inequality. What’s wrong with the world is essentially inequality. But it isn’t reflected in what I want the Cure to be. I wanted the Cure to be something that I could escape into. For me, it was an escape from the world. Like when I was doing the “Love Cats” video, and I’m there caressing kittens, I can’t turn around and say, “By the way, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the world.” It’s beyond absurd. Although now cuddling kittens would probably be a political statement in the state we’re in.

But you are political.
Behind the scenes, the Cure has always been politically active but usually pretty anonymously. It suits the way the band works, and everyone is much more comfortable with that rather than me being overt. They despair sometimes when I’ve had a few beers and I’ve done shows and I start spouting off. They’re like, “Please, don’t start.” Because once I start, it’s very hard to stop. I think it’s a great thing to be able to get up in front of people and convince people of what’s right and what’s wrong, although that depends on who you think is right and who is wrong.