#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Hyde Park, 7th July 2018

Posted on July 7, 2024 by frazerlee

The Cure’s 40th anniversary was always going to be special. But quite this special? What a day. What a night. Let’s rewind to 7th July 2018…

It was a scorchingly sunny Summer’s day in Londontown & 65,000 of the faithful descended on Hyde Park in a shimmer of summer hats beneath a black cloud of tour t-shirts. Robert Smith had curated quite the line-up (something of a continuation of his amazing Meltdown Festival during the preceding month).

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Editors, Pale Waves, Lisa Hannigan, The Twilight Sad, Ride, Goldfrapp (spent most of their set queueing for a t-shirt), Interpol, (and more!) all went down a storm before The Cure arrived onstage to a truly rapturous heroes’ welcome.

Interpol at Hyde Park 7/7/18 (Photo ©Frazer Lee)

What followed was the consummate festival set (reminiscent of their standout Bestival shows from 2011 & 2016) featuring an embarrassment of hits & some strategically placed deeper & darker grooves like Burn & If Only Tonight We Could Sleep.

The encores had everyone singing along, (their voices already raw from cheering for Engerland in the World Cup quarter final earlier) and The Cure brought its anniversary to a close with a clutch of the tunes that have helped them endure in the hearts & on the stereos and playlists of so many.

I’m glad that I was lucky enough to have seen the ‘Curaetion-25’ Meltdown show a couple of weeks earlier, when they played two tracks off each album forwards then backwards along the Cure’s timeline. It meant that i was (a little) less obsessive about hearing songs from Pornography & Faith than i usually am!

I couldn’t help but think of the stark contrast with the band’s previous Hyde Park outing, in 2002. That was one of their darkest outdoor sets (and one of my favourites, natch!) and really felt like the end of a chapter for the band — whereas this anniversary show felt like a joyous pause, a playful stocktake before the beginning of a new one.

Early on, Robert apologised for his lack of banter between songs, but as the sun went down he opened up a bit. “Thanks to everyone around me, I’m still here…” Robert mumbled, “and to you as well, so thank you very much!”

We had the opportunity to relive this special show all over again, in cinemas, with the Anniversary film shot by none other than Tim Pope, and then at home with the sumptuous 40 Live box set.

“It’s been a good four decades, here’s to the next one,” Robert said at the end of this epic gig, “here’s to the next one! See you again very soon!”

And we did. But as ever, that’s another story…

See what The Cure played on 7th July 2018 here.

Follow The Cure on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and visit the official website.

Comment below with your Cure memories! I’d love to hear them!

#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Hammersmith Apollo, 21 & 22 December 2014

Posted on December 22, 2023 by frazerlee

Hard to believe it’s already nine(!?) years since The Cure played their festive run of gigs at the Hammersmith Apollo, a venue that keeps changing its name but which to me will always be, well… Hammersmith Apollo.

There was a lot of speculation from fans online about the gigs. Would they be like the Trilogy shows? Would they play the Top, The Head on the Door, and Kiss Me albums over the three nights? Would there be new songs?

The announcement of the support act was a big hint. And Also the Trees would join our heroes just as they did for the 1984 shows at the same venue. The Top album formed the backbone (or Bananafishbones?) of the set, which also included some rareties and plenty of crowd pleasers. (Tantalisingly, The Cure also soundchecked Stop Dead, but it didn’t appear in the set…)

The first night was a brilliant timewarp of the band’s back catalogue, and reminded me that a Cure gig really is like time travel through past, present (and sometimes into the future). Like Cockatoos was a feathery flurry of nostalgia (a favourite of mine, which The Cure played at my first ever Cureshow). Many of The Top tracks were performed for the first time in 30 years, and the unhinged brilliance that is A Man Inside My Mouth made its live debut.

Another rare outing (Hey You!!!) brought festivities to a joyous close, with the crowd singing & dancing along in the aisles. But the at-close-quarters party atmosphere inside the packed and sweaty venue also meant that I got ill and couldn’t attend the third and final night. But two out of three ain’t bad when you’re seeing the best band in the (empty) world.

See what The Cure played here.

Check out some video footage, while it’s still available.

and Happy Winter Solstice x

Frazer x

#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Crystal Palace Bowl, 11th August 1990

Posted on August 11, 2023 by frazerlee

This time 33 years ago(!) I was aboard a coach & stuck in traffic en route from sunny Staffordshire to an even sunnier Crystal Palace for the event of the year — The Garden Party.

For their South London Pleasure Trips show The Cure had put together a dream lineup with All About Eve, James & Lush providing sonic support.

I remember packing 2 cassette tapes in my bag (Scarlet & Other Stories by the Eves and the B52s Cosmic Thing) and persuaded the coach driver to play them, which was great… until we hit motorway traffic and the tape just kept auto playing until we’d all heard Loveshack far too many times!

Legging it off the bus to catch the last bit of Lush’s set (bloody traffic) there was time to grab a t-shirt…

…before a bit of a Sit Down for James (geddit?), a fair bit of goth hand dancing for AAE (joined by Wayne Hussey on guitar to riotous applause), and then the lake in front of the stage became a dry ice mood swamp as The Cure hit the stage and launched into Shake Dog Shake. Amazing.

There was this ramp thingy with barriers keeping people away from the lake (and several metres from the stage, Robert quipping about needing boats), which made for a piss poor view even down the front. I remember moving back as night fell for some deep cuts including The Same Deep Water As You (aka ‘no, YOU’RE crying’) and (OMG!) Lament. So brilliant to hear those songs under a starlit sky.

Fireworks fizzed and crackled across the lake as The Cure told us whatever they do it’s Never Enough.

Honestly, I could have died happy just having heard Lament played live, and so beautifully, but there were more legendary Cure shows in store…

See what The Cure played here.

Instafollow: The Cure, Julianne Regan (AAE), James, Miki Berenyi from Lush.

#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Finsbury Park, 13th June 1993

Posted on June 13, 2023 by frazerlee

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

Still got the tee & the ticket! — **Still got the ticket! And the tee!**

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!

#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Kilburn National Ballroom, 3rd May 1992

Posted on May 3, 2022 by frazerlee

Thirty(!) years ago today I was beside myself with excitement for a very special The Cure gig. Ahead of the full Wish Tour, the band announced a clutch of warm-up dates at club venues.

All the shows I had seen up to that point had either been in enormous arenas, or outdoor shows. The Kilburn National Ballroom was a relatively tiny venue for The Cure, and that only added to the feeling of anticipation. Seeing your #CultHeroes live is honour enough, but up close and personal? Even better.

The journey to seeing this gig was fraught. I was studying for a Journalism degree at the time and had an in-class assessment the day that tickets went on sale (at only £10 each!). In these pre-internet days phoning up to book tickets, or queuing in person, were the only options. The only person I knew who would want to go wasn’t able to queue up either, so I had to knuckle down and complete my class assessment while the clock ticked down and – you guessed it – the gig sold out.

First world problems, I know! (Hey, I was still very young back then.) And it turns out I passed the in-class assessment so there is that. I was trying to be responsible, even in the face of my borderline insane Cure obsession! And, luckily I was working a part-time job to support myself so I rolled up my baggy black sleeves, put in several extra hours and saved up some cash.

Long story short, the £10 ticket ended up costing me £60 on the night, but I had enough cash left over for a tour shirt and a couple of beers. People danced and sang along. There were promotional balloons! Happy the man, as the old b-side goes.

The gig itself was a loud, joyous, sweaty sprint through the amazing new double album Wish plus several hits and surprises. The crane camera swinging and floating above the crowd added a showbiz touch to proceedings, and from what I recall there was a fair bit of crowd-surfing going on during the faster numbers. (Hey, this was ’92, the golden age of grunge…)

I emerged from the tiny, packed out venue with a massive grin on my face. I would see The Cure a further nine times on the ’92 Wish tour, in those huge arenas again. But, as an intimate introduction to a massive tour, the 3rd May 1992 would be very hard to beat.

*The shirt still fits!* (pic taken on 6music #tshirtday November 2021)

See what The Cure played on 3rd May 1992 here.

Follow The Cure on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and visit the official website.

Comment below with your Cure memories! I’d love to hear them!

#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: NEC Birmingham, 6th December 1987

Posted on December 7, 2020 by frazerlee

In the first of an occasional series, I’m marking the anniversary of The Cure concerts i’ve attended over the years, because they are my favourite band and I love them, and because 2020 has made such things into impossible dreams.

The first post has to be my first gig!

On 6th December, way back in 1987, I boarded a coach from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, to go see my first ever Cureshow at Birmingham NEC Arena.

I had seen a few gigs already. Clannad, Big Audio Dynamite, Spear of Destiny, INXS, The Cult, and Fields of the Nephilim (to name a few i can actually remember) but this was the big one.

This was The Cure.

Earlier that year I had seen The Cure in Orange concert film at my local cinema, in Hanley, Staffordshire, with my school friend Susan Greaves. I played ‘The Blood’ to her on my cassette Walkman because she’d never heard it before. We got up & danced at the back while the movie played. It was magic, but (to coin a phrase) I wished it was all real, I wished it couldn’t be a story.

This time, in Birmingham in Winter, it was brilliantly real.

The seats were the cheapo ones, very near to… the back of the arena. But I didn’t care so much about the seats, I had no intention of staying seated in mine anyhow. The arena lights dimmed and… There was no support band, just ‘Eyemou’ — an experimental film of close-ups on Robert Smith’s mouth and eyes, projected into a screen that covered the stage. The casuals were getting a bit restless during the film, but sixteen year old me was absolutely bloody loving it. The film was the magical bridge between the In Orange movie, and the actual, physical Cure i had yearned to experience live for so long.

I can still feel the goosebumps i felt then, when the opening bars of ‘The Kiss’ kicked in, and the screen dropped to reveal the band I would see again & again & again & again after that fateful first time. Robert’s voice opened like a flower and the crowd went bonkers. And it got better and better.

*The t-shirt is still going strong 33 years later!*

The next couple of hours were my induction into by now familiar Cure traits:

⁃ The mixed crowd of casuals (one guy was very disappointed they didn’t play The Lovecats and couldn’t believe it when i told him the band couldn’t play it live — true at that time) and die-hards.

⁃ the random b-side/obsCure-ity thrown in to the set to rapturous applause from those in-the-know (that night it was ‘A Japanese Dream’ that surprised the most, i’d been playing my copy to death in the run up to the show).

⁃ and Robert’s charming inability to do onstage banter (’ello! is sometimes the only decipherable phrase to be uttered by our hero).

The coach journey home was a blur as i replayed every note in my backcombed head. I was bewitched, besotted, bewildered — and utterly hooked.

But i’d have to wait until 1989, and The Prayer Tour, to see them again.

And that is another story.