Thirty years(!) ago today I was in a London park in the sunshine, rocking my socks (and my paratrooper boots) off.

Great X-pectations was a special one-day gig in support of indie radio station XFM. Around this time, The Cure had taken to the airwaves and hosted Cure FM a weekend of choons (and by all accounts also a weekend of debauched, erm, XS) on the station, which was pitching for a London-wide license so it could bring the magic to the masses. Rather like XFM itself, the event attracted an exciting mix of artists and an eclectic audience.

Belly and Catherine Wheel were ace (from what I recall all these years later), as were Senseless Things and Sugar. Carter USM went down an absolute storm, but I remember feeling frustrated with the lacklustre audience response to the headliners. I’m far too old to dance nowadays, but 30 years ago it seemed criminal to leave a single blade of Finsbury Park grass uncut by tapping feet!

The Cure‘s set began aggressively with the triple salvo of Shiver and Shake (from 1987’s Kiss Me… album, and the first time they had played it since then), Shake Dog Shake, both containing more expletives than, well, you shake a stick at, capped off by the incendiary One Hundred Years. Around this time, The Cure was subject to acrimonious legal action from former band member Lol Tolhurst (thankfully those wounds have now healed over and if you fancy reading Lol’s account of his side of things, I can recommend his memoir Cured), and I think that maybe set the tone a bit. Maybe the crowd were expecting a ‘greatest hits’ set on such a picnic-in-the-park type of Sunday – hence the lack of movement – but they weren’t gonna get that… not for while yet anyway.

It’s Not You was a lovely surprise during the encores (I had seen them play it a couple of times on the Wish Tour the year before), which, praise be, saw the gathered throng finally cutting some parkland rug en masse.

Pure bliss, as always. A fresh air cocktail of misery and joy. But over too soon.

Looking back, I realise just how unique this line-up of bands and Cure songs really was, a day that reflected the spirit of what XFM was trying to do on air.

This was 1993’s only outing for the band and we were in for a little bit of a wait until the next Cure album and tour, but that’s another story…

F x

Check out The Cure’s Great Xpectations setlist!

And see archival footage/interview here (The Beat)

Leave your own Cure memories in the comments, i love to read them!