Kyle Broflovski was right:
For those of you that don’t know, The Cure has been in Australia playing their album “Disintegration” from beginning to end as part of the 30th anniversary of its release.
Since they don’t want to play the same show EVERY place they visit this year, they are live-streaming the last Sydney show around the world on YouTube.
For free.
Tonight.
At approximately 3:00 AM Pacific and 6:00 AM Eastern.
Litre_cola and I thought that the event was worthy enough for us to take the day off and partake in a live blog in which the rest of you could join in.
We’ll each give you our individual takes on what The Cure has meant to us through the years and join you in the comments. One of us is most likely going to be high during the proceedings, so you have that to look forward to as well.
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Balls’ Take
The Cure was the first band I ever saw live in concert. It was at Dodger Stadium in September of 1989. The Cure was on their “Prayer Tour” which was mostly supporting the release of Disintegration in the US.
To this day, it’s the best concert I have ever been to.
Now, that’s not hyperbole or wistfulness arising out of a momentous First Time. The Cure played for almost 3 hours. Look at this set list:
- Plainsong
- Pictures of You
- Closedown
- Piggy In The Mirror
- A Night Like This
- Just Like Heaven
- Last Dance
- Fascination Street
- Lovesong
- Charlotte Sometimes
- The Walk
- A Forest
- In Between Days
- The Same Deep Water As You
- Prayers For Rain
- Disintegration
Encore One
- Lullaby
- Close To Me
- Let’s Go To Bed
- Why Can’t I Be You
Encore Two
- Homesick
- Untitled
Encore Three
- A Strange Day
- Hot Hot Hot
- Three Imaginary Boys
- Boys Don’t Cry
- 10:15 Saturday Night
- Killing An Arab
I still have a piece of a Dodger stadium seat that I took home as a souvenir from that concert:
From the link above, I can tell you that The Pixies, some band named Shelleyan Orphan, and Love and Rockets were the opening acts. I think the only band we saw play was Love and Rockets because I don’t remember any of the others. I think we got there late. Blame LA traffic.
I love to listen to The Cure and specially songs from Disintegration when I’m down. For some reason, it always makes me feel better and it brightens my mood. It seems the darker the songs and the darker the themes, the more it cheers me up. I’m weird.
Robert Smith has said that he wrote Disintegration as a reaction to his turning 30 and to the music world thinking he might make a pretty good pop star. The entire album is full of doom and gloom save for the one song he wrote as a wedding present to his wife: Lovesong.
He’s said that the album wouldn’t be the same without it and I agree. For there is no despair without hope. No pain without first having experienced joy. It is when good things get taken away from us that we feel the deepest pain.
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Litre’s Take
These guys have been a large influence in my life for the better part of 30 years. Usually when I get loaded up I come home and fire on an album in my ear phones and pass out. Disintegration is indeed their best album by far.
Story I once took a 46 hour bus ride from Milan to Barcelona to see their farewell concert in 2000. When the bus arrived in Barcelona there was a bunch of Sri Lankan refugees aboard with shady papers. Guns were drawn and I had to crawl over seats to get out as they weren’t moving and I wanted the fuck off. There weren’t Euros yet, it cost me100 pesetas for the scalper ticket.. It was just when they released the Bloodflowers album and this was supposed to be their final show in Spain. I dug up the setlist and it was pretty damn good.
Out of this World, Watching me Fall, Want, Fascination Street, Open, The Loudest Sound, The Kiss, The Snakepit, Maybe Someday, Shake dog Shake, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, In Between Days, Prayers for Rain, One hundred Years, End, 39, Bloodflowers.
Encore 1 : There is no if, Trust, Plainsong, Disintegration
Encore 2: M, Play For Today, A Forest,
Encore 3: Faith.
The show was absolutely amazing. Some dude in the hostel I was staying at had pneumonia so gave me some Moroccan hash the day of so I had a really good buzz going in. Problem was that when the lights went down and I wanted to spark another I had dropped my lighter. These 2 20-something females were beside me who spoke no English or French, my Spanish is rudimentary so the only way I could request fire was show them my pocket full of joints and mime a lighter motion. They eventually picked up on it and we all melted in to our seats for the show. The band played so long that the metro wasn’t running so I had to walk 5 miles back to the hostel but it was like I was floating, it was bliss.
I also saw them at Riotfest in Denver a few years back. That festival had a load of bands from different genres. It is not often that you get to see Wu Tang Clan, Slayer (Reign in Blood Album), The Cure, Clutch, NOFX, Rise Against in one weekend. The Cure played for over two hours on their evening and it was a perfect ending to a hard fought day of drinking, smoking, screaming.
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The Album
Balls: I bought and have kept over the years a book that Robert Smith put out that has the lyrics to all Cure songs from the beginning until 1989. The following pages show the lyrics to all the songs in Disintegration:
Note that Homesick was the last song on the album. Babble, Out of Mind, Fear of Ghosts, and 2 Late were written at the same time, but ended up being B-sides of singles released in 1989 in support of the album.
Here is a YouTube playlist with all songs in the album, in order:
***
My best friend works maintenance at the Opera House and has sent me these throughout the week, he is a huge metal head and thinks that The Cure is wrist slitting music.
And Here Is The Live Stream:
Yours in the comments…
(66/69)
NICE! I love Burn!
Balls, this hall holds 2679. Fuck, how quaint!
That’s crazy! That’s so small!
It is Vivid festival, they sold out 5 shows, could have sold out 2 weeks worth says Rob.
Should have just taken the day off and gotten drunk during this.
That was awesome. I’m so glad I woke up for this.
THERE WILL BE MORE
And I always skipped it because Untitled is such a great song. Perfect song to end the album on.
Fair play.
I have to admit, Homesick is the one song I always skipped.
Not I. This has been flowing and moody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=houFuiYrEi0
That bass line gets me every single time. I fucking love this song.
Oh yeah, inject this darkness in to my veins.
The Same Deep Water As You may be my second favourite song on the album next to Disintegration.
This is better than I expected and I expected A LOT.
Ok, the hit song portion of the album is over. Time for more moody everything sucks songs!
Bring. It. ON.
I feel that his keyboard isn’t secured properly. That is a health and safety risk.
Prayers for rain is a totally creepy foreboding tune that makes you feel like you are being stalked.
Look who’s here!
I’ve always preferred the alternate versions of Fascination Street to the album version. It’s too tight. I like how the song can be taken in different directions as they’re doing it here.
It definitely is fluid. These guys are so good they can take it anywhere.
Well just woke up my wife by turning this one up. NO REGRETS.
You can tell Robert is enjoying himself. That little extra lyric and that kiss was pretty cool.
They all seem to be having a good time.
Oh shit, I just got why the stage is covered with spiderwebs! It’s because of Lullaby! Duh!
Totally figured it out the same time you did. When Rob sent me those pics I was confused.
Fuck, is that a cool background.
It’s funny that in my book Last Dance is listed close to the end while in the actual album, it came right after Lovesong. There has to be some story behind that, I’d think. Maybe the book was Robert’s personal idea of how the order should have been?
Have to ask my buddy how many this part of the Opera House seats. It looks tiny.
I wonder how many couples in the 90s made Lovesong their wedding song?
And how many are divorced now?
Momma Cola did a reading at my…..1st wedding.
That’s funny
Fly me to the moon.
I’m not sure why Closedown wasn’t a standalone hit. Yeah, it doesn’t fit the formula of your standard song that can be played on the radio, but the melody is catchy.
So happy I woke up for this.
This tune is fucking epic. Pretty happy that I am not down right now, as mentioned above.
Why isn’t my 2 year old appreciating this musical genius?????
Yep, singing this one got me emotional.
I do enjoy how they switch up the hit songs just a bit in concert. It’s not the same version as in the album and it shouldn’t be. Pictures of You is better as a longer song, not a 4 minute pop song.
Here we go. Gotta love the start to the album with Plainsong. It’s like it announces something big is coming. Yes, I use it as mood music for erotic encounters, why do you ask?
The album “Paris” was my go-to back in the day.
I concur. That one was great.
I may be a lazy asshole, but I’m really enjoying watching this show in my bed.
My wife is sleeping in because I am going to work late.
Where am I going to pick my spot to shower and get ready for work? I already know that I am going in late.
The Sydney Opera House looks pretty from the outside with those lights.
Would we call this a Pre-core? The band is taking a break and returning with the album itself.
Now this is a tune.
Finally my spawn woke up so I could grind some coffee!
Three more songs to this introduction: All B-sides. First one is 2 late.
Next one is Out Of Mind.
Last one is Babble. I rather like this one. Sets up the beginning of the album with the tone.
A couple of demos now. It’s cool that they are playing all the obscure stuff. These songs are mostly instrumental, but very ethereal and in keeping with the mood of the album.
I just saw Robert Smith smile.
This fourth song is almost New Order-ish. They may have had a dance hit with that one… At least on Sirius XM Chill.
He just said they might never play these demo songs again and it’s a shame because I really do think they deserve to be on an album and get played. Specially that New Order-y one.
Absolutely. He was smiling as he played a couple.
All kidding aside I just remembered my theology teacher from senior year of high school grew up with and knows Simon Gallup personally.
Man, technology is great! I can actually watch my favourite band live in concert while taking my morning dump!
I’ll be honest I just know Love Song and that other one about killing Syrians
Second song is Fear of Ghosts, one of the B-sides I mentioned above.
Not creepy at all.
Robert Smith looks like King Buzzo after a buffet and a drunken romp through his mother’s makeup. Bless his heart.
BTW, for those of you waiting for Litre to show up, I think he got high and sort of wandered off…
Present!!!!!
I made it! 15 mins late tho.
I remember the Cure/Addams Family adult film collab “Friday: I Drink Cum”
This deserves all the likes.
Interesting. They are starting the show with songs that were written/recorded at the same time as the album. I had seen online some criticism that the show was brilliant with the album and then fell off after when they started playing these obscure songs. Maybe they decided to switch it up and close with the final song in the album?
Wait, hang on! Show’s starting!
Yells and screams. The natives are getting restless.
At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, why are tickets so expensive nowadays? The Cure is coming to Pasadena to curate and headline a festival and the cheapest tickets are $150. No way I’m paying that for just one band that I’m interested in.
Apparently, the media company bringing this event to the people in Sydney is “Vivid” and I’m not sure when they expanded beyond porn, but that’s a good business decision!
Thunder has started and these people aren’t realizing that’s the start of the album
Why is there an AFL ref standing in the middle of the screen? I didn’t know that was a ref perk!
Holy Shit it’s early!