The Cure are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year (they formed in 1976, and started recording in 1978). To celebrate their career the band are on tour to (unofficially, at least) celebrate this. And from the offset of the tour, things were reportedly looking good for long-time/hardcore Cure fans. The band had been performing obscure songs they hadn't since the 1980's. And the band played a three-night residency at New York's famous Madison Square Garden. Despite being a longtime Cure fan, I hadn't yet seen the band perform live. So I was especially looking forward to this show.
The Cure line-up in 2016 is, of course, Robert Smith on vocals, guitar and occasional six-string bass, longtime David Bowie-band member Reeves Gabrels on lead guitar, longtime Cure member Simon Gallup on bass, Roger O'Donnell on Keyboards - who made a welcome return to the fold after a long absence - and Jason Cooper, who has been with The Cure since the mid 90's. The band has a wonderful uniformity of sound and sounded fantastic together. It was also fairly obvious that this was a fun show for them. Gallup and O'Donnell's playfully interactions were revealing of that. Smith still sounded in good voice and still looks as he has always (slightly chubby, black clothes, frizzy hair, some lipstick).
The band opened with the mid-tempo "Out Of This World" from Bloodflowers followed by the wonderful "Pictures Of You" and the fine "Closedown" both from Disintegration. I was overjoyed when the band launched into "High" - a personal favorite from the Summer of 1992's Wish - "A Night Like This", "Push" (which had nearly everyone up dancing) and "In Between Days" (the band's first Billboard Top 100 hit) all of which came from The Head On The Door album. The performed most of their US hits ("Just Like Heaven", "Love Song", "Lullaby") notable absences were "Friday I'm In Love" and "Fascination Street", both of which were performed at the previous MSG shows.
The band performed some classics that they don't always perform - all of which were favorites of mine; the lilting "The Caterpillar", the bonafide psychedelic classic "A Forest", the new wave synth dance pop classics "The Walk" and "Let's Go To Bed", the late 80's club classics "Hot! Hot! Hot!" and "Why Can't I Be You" (both of which had the entire place up and dancing frantically), "Play For Today" and "At Night" from their Seventeen Seconds album, the rarity "Bananafishbones" and "Shake Dog Shake" from The Top, "Close To Me" and "Kyoto Song" also from The Head On The Door. The band played for over three hours performing 31 songs with four (!) encores.
Opening band The Twilight Sad were a fitting opening band and were a pleasant surprise.
Overall, The Cure were amazing and exceeded all expectations that I had going in to the show. If you're a Cure fan and are hesitant about seeing them. Don't be. I highly recommend seeing them if/when you have the chance.
Photos by Bill Wikstrom.
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