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The Cure

by 17 Comments

Venue:

Sydney Opera House

Date: 30/05/2019

The last of five nights performing the Disintegration album + assorted non-album tracks from that era as part of Sydney’s Vivid festival. The Cure are a band I’ve always liked a lot, but never gotten deeply into, although sitting next to a fairly rabid fan at work for the past couple of years has at least started to remedy that.

Demand was high for these gigs, so much so they had to run a ballot for the chance to buy tickets, and this fifth night was added due to the first four selling out quicker than you can say “pass the lipstick Robert”.

Kicking of with Delirious Nights we were treated to a batch of b-sides and demos, setting the scene for the dark and brooding Disintegration. The band, made up of Smith, Gallup, long time members Roger O’Donnell and Jason Cooper and relative newcomer Reeves Gabrels, were tight, very tight, and what must have been intense rehearsals to recreate the album showed. Finishing with a superb Babble, the band left the stage for a few minutes as the wind chimes started for the beginning of the album. Live, the album sounded big. Gallup’s thundering bass and Cooper’s thudding bass drum sometimes threatening to drown everyone else, yes guitars, keys and vocals pierced through. As the album progresses the songs become more dense, and with a lesser may have slipped into turgid, yet by the time we get to the title track the gig is soaring, and as Smith screams “I never said I would stay to the end” the audience swells with a touch of rapture. Homesick begins the comedown, and by the end of Untitled, the audiences feet touch the floor.

The encore kicked of with Burn from the Scarecrow soundtrack (and boy did the goths whoop and holla when it came on), delving slightly further into the back catalogue for Three Imaginary Boys, and slipping into Pogues territory with a cover of Wendy Walman’s Pirate Ships. The band left the stage and, despite the best efforts of the audience (one guy clapped for 10 minutes straight, made my arms tired just watching him), didn’t return and an elated audience left the House into the cold wintery chill.

The audience:

Young and old. Old dressed as younger versions of themselves. Youngsters dressed to emulate the old. The odd hint of day-glo, but so much black that people needed to be careful crossing the road after.

It made me think..

The audience went wild as, during Lullaby, Smith stepped away from the mic with an odd lurching movement, possibly mimicking part of the original video for the song. He could have spent the entire gig facing the rear of the stage with a sign on his back saying ‘I hate you all”, and they would still love him.

2

Comments

  1. Nice review . Thanks.

    I’ve seen them twice. Once in a pub for $A3.50 when they had one album to their name and their last full tour of Oz. At the latter gig, they were great however, it was very long and incredibly loud. And this is coming from an old rock dog used to such things. I was exhausted and my tinnitus was at 11 by the gig’s end.

    I’ve never heard a review of a Cure gig where they are reported to have slummed it, were ill rehearsed, perfunctory etc. It’s a good thing.

  2. Agree it was a great night. I was thinking…

    Great lights and backdrop videos and animations. Great sound too, much better than The The in the same room last year.
    Robert Smith sounds near as damnit identical to how he did back in the day-that’s unusual for a 60 year old.
    There’s a reason Simon Gallup is as thin as a whippet and the others aren’t…it was only him and the drummer moving more than the walk on and off stage. Well, Roger O’Donnell is fairly svelte too. And Gallup’s the baby of the front line at 58 (59 tomorrow).
    I could barely hear Reeves Gabriel’s, usually only when he was on his own with drum and bass, and even then almost lost in the mix. He only seemed to be involved half the time and audible less than half of that. We were right in front of the sound desk too so there’s no excuse for that. Seemed like a waste of talent.
    And when he bent down to fiddle with some pedal gear, he nearly didn’t make it down and looked like he might not make it back up.
    He was definitely showing off his guitar collection though. I counted 7 or 8 before he started using something a second time.
    Drums. Bloody great thumping tribal rhythms. Great noise, but a bit one-note throughout. I know, drums only have one note. Usually. He could have saved shipping on the cymbals too, or sell them, barely used.
    And I really could have done with a couple of hits outside of Disintegration.
    Robert Smith comes across as a really nice, shy, gentle thoughtful kind of bloke. At least as far as I could tell from half a dozen sentences spoken. Not a lot of chat.

    It’s all up on YouTube at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9uSPf9WDbw

  3. Great review, simon. ‘So much black that people had to be careful crossing the road after.’

    I saw The Cure once, supporting Siouxsie And The Banshees. Siouxsie had carelessly lost her guitarist and drummer, so Smith stepped in. He was excellent. I met him after the gig and he was pleasantness personified. Siouxsie, on the other hand was miserable but, then, she had lost her guitarist and drummer. I couldn’t tell you who The Cure’s drummer back then was but he wasn’t one note.

  4. Declaration of interest: Disintegration is my favourite album of all time by anyone. There, I’ve said it.

    I was one of the 100,000 + hopefuls who was unsuccessful in the ballot for the first 4 shows, and unsuccessful again for the final one, broadcast last night. A colleague came to the rescue earlier in the week with a relative who couldn’t go. A whole bunch of rigmarole to offset anti-scalping measures later, my wife and I, both of us feeling poorly all week, were sitting in Opera House in what turned out to be bloody good seats.

    I still cannot describe how emotionally affecting I found it. My initial trepidation about poor reviews revolve around the first night’s ‘album first/B sides after’ structure which they thankfully remedied from show 2 onward. So the only challenge then was to settle in and not allow the anticipation to make the reality impossible to live up to. But i took it on its own terms and it still surpassed my expectations. Magical.

    I’ve marvelled since at how an album I’ve always associated with private listening can have been such a communally satisfying experience. And how a music that it so ‘inward’ can sound so sonically towering.

    I agree that Gabrel’s was relatively low in the mix. I think that’s more an aesthetic decision: that album is so much about Gallup’s bass and Smith’s six-string bass melodies. Visually, I ‘see’ those at the foreground with Gabrel’s in the middle distance and Cooper bringing up the rear. (Also, being so familiar with the album, I found the rare occasions Gabrels went off-script – Love Song, Prayers for Rain – as a little jarring)

    Easily one of the most immersive and emotional gig going experiences of my life.

    On some of the previous, excellent comments:
    Junior, this was a tidy 2 hours and the volume was insistent but not overbearing. Helped by the pace of many of the songs too I imagine. Harold, the ‘one note’ drumming is one of my favourite aspects of the album. I’ve often found myself ‘singing along’ to the drum riffs. (And Cooper’s kit is hilarious: usually a drummer might have various combinations of crash and a ride, with a china cymbal for occasional colour. Cooper had 4 china cymbals only. ‘Any colour so long as its black’.) In terms of playing stuff outside Disintegration, I think that they tour relatively frequently (even here in Australia) so there’s no harm in them being quite explicit in what any given show will focus on. (Besides, my guess is that for such prominent profile as part of the Vivid festival, they would have been encouraged, if not contractually-bound, by the organisers to offer something world-exclusive) And, having seen them in 92 and 2000 (?), that’s certainly the chattiest I’ve ever seen Robert. None of which is to disagree: I’m still so buzzed I’m happy just to talking about it. Watched the livestream last night where they played equally as well, though the crowd maybe more vocal than when I saw them on Tuesday.

    I loved it. A night of supernatural beauty. Reaffirmed my love of that album, and of music generally.

    • I did love it for nearly all the reasons you very wisely pointed out. But as for Reeves in the mix, it’s live and it’s Reeves fer gawds sake. Let him extemporise a bit at least. It’s not supposed to be exactly the same as the record.

      And I don’t know whether it’s my ancient hearing (fucked up by AC/DC at the NEC in the 80s and again at the Ent Cent in the noughties) or the sound quality, but on the rare occassion there was a cymbal hit, it sounded like a weird hiss to me. Everything else was crystal clear, just Reeves and the cymbals mucked up.

      I’ll have to watch the video link I posted to see if I’m going mental.

      But it was a really great night and I was just too sober to ignore my petty obsessions. You’re right, it was my problem as it was the premise of the gig. I blame it being a school night. Apart from the fact I was out drinking till the early hours afterwards.

      It was telling that the earlier review criticisms were taken on board and the set adjusted accordingly.

    • Ooh that sounds good. I’m a fairweather fan of the Cure (love at least ten of their songs, but wouldn’t go out of my way to buy an album or a tshirt, seen them once in the nineties and wouldn’t choose to pay to see them again….) so that sounds about perfect for me. A comfy cinema to watch them live!

      • (“What are the ten Cure songs you like Arthur? Can you do us a list, pleeeease? Everyone loves a list!”)

        Oh go on then, off the top of my head and in no order:

        1 – Caterpillar
        2 – Happy the Man (B-side of Caterpillar -just cos I have the 45 and played it a lot back the days when I only had about five records)
        3 – Lovecats
        4 – Boys Don’t Cry
        5 – A Forest
        6 – Just Like Heaven
        7 – Close to Me (the groovy remix version with the drums sampled from the Headhunters)
        8 – Never Enough
        9 – The Perfect Girl
        10 – Catch

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