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The Cure, Toyota Center Houston

10 June, 2008

I used to be a pretty big fan of The Cure back in the day, but I kind of gave up on them when they went all cheerful, and I haven’t bought an album of theirs since 1987’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.  So when I heard they were coming to Houston, I was in two minds about going.  I’d more-or-less decided not to, when I bumped into a buddy, who I hadn’t seen in two years (last seen at Pukkelpop) and didn’t even know was in the country, who said he was thinking of going. So for the sake of some decent musically-minded company, I overlooked the excessive $45 ticket price (plus the obligatory $10 ‘convenience fee’), and went along.

If I’m honest, I was more interested in the chance to see support band 65daysofstatic again, rather than The Cure.  I saw 65daysofstatic at the Domino Festival in Brussels and was blown away by them.  I would have paid just about anything to see them again, but then I listened to their most recent offering on their Website, and it was veering far too much into dance territory for my liking. As it turned out, I didn’t get the chance to check out their new sound anyway. The doors opened at 7:30pm, and we got there at 8:00pm, and there was neither sight nor sound of them. So either they played a very short, very early set, or they didn’t play at all. A very disappointing start to the evening, especially as I’d talked them up to Eli.

I’ve seen The Cure twice before – at Glastonbury in ’86 and then ’88.  Back then it was all mud and/or sunburn.  This time around it was at an all-seater, air-conditioned basketball stadium.  I think this is the first time I’ve sat down at a gig since David Byrne at the Cirque Royale, and I don’t like it. Gigs should be a joint undertaking between the band and the audience, but it’s difficult to get into it when you’re wedged into a seat with barely enough room to tap your foot – except when you have to stand up every ten minutes to let people get past. And the security monkeys don’t help, shooing people out of the aisles and back into their allocated sections. Still, I should be grateful I was saved the backache and sore feet I usually get at gigs (must be my age…).

The first two thirds of the gig was pretty disappointing. The Cure opened with a down-beat acoustic number (hardly taking the audience by storm), and then went on to showcase material from what I assume to be their most recent few albums. I barely recognized any of the tracks (save a perfect Pictures of You) although Eli informs me that they did quite a few tracks from Disintegration. Whatever. Apart from A Hundred Years from Pornography (favorite track from favorite album, so some redemption there, although as the main guitar signature was missing from the first half of the song due to technical difficulties it was a somewhat muted hurrah), I don’t think they played anything from their first four albums until the second ‘encore’ (introduced by chuckling Fat Bob as “the second half of our set”).

Thankfully things improved at that point, with back-to-back performances of Boys Don’t Cry, Grinding Halt, Jumping Someone Else’s Train, 10:15 Saturday Night and Killing An Arab. These were all pretty punchy, bounce-along versions, and much better suited to The Cure’s new lineup as a quartet. This time around they have ditched (or been ditched by) the keyboard player, which was painfully apparent on some songs, although Robert did his best to fill in the blanks on acoustic guitar, whilst Porl Tompson (resplendent in PVC trousers and a skirt) simply filled in all available airspace with guitar squalls (which is a good thing).

I guess The Cure’s audience has become ‘more selective’, as despite downsizing from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion to the Toyota Center, there were quite a few empty seats. On top of this, there was an almost constant exodus of people from about 10 minutes into the set. It’s as if people just wanted to be able to say they’d seen The Cure, and reasoned that two songs was enough to justify checking that box. By the final (third!) encore, I counted some 27 seats immediately adjacent to me that had been vacated (and my feet don’t smell that much!), which didn’t exactly foster a party atmosphere. Still, it was the early-leaver’s loss, as the band finished with a thundering version of A Forest, with Simon Gallup unleashing some gut-rumbling bass, skinny legs spread wide, and the guitar almost horizontal as he thrashed away. “Just like the old days.”

Overall, it was alright. It won’t go down as one of the best gigs of my life, but it was as good a way as any to while away the almost three hours that they played for, on a Monday night.

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