Monday 31 March 2014

REVIEW - THE CURE, ROYAL ALBERT HALL 29 MARCH 2014

I've been a Cure fan for years now but had never seen them live which was a source of constant frustration. I was then rather excited, to put it mildly, to head to the Albert Hall on Saturday for the Teenage Cancer Trust gig. It was a fantastic show, breathtaking in places, and it underlined just how incredible a back catalogue The Cure have. Whilst my wife and I are fans of the band, we're not quite at the level I am with Depeche Mode, so it was great to end up sitting beside Neale who helped guide us through the b-sides played in the show. It was great to chat to a Cure fan who clearly loves the band as much as the many Depeche fans I've met over the years love DM - she had some cool stories about following the band including a marathon 16 hour session standing up front at Glastonbury to see them. Impressive!

Plainsong


Anyway, to the show. I'd read the reviews of the Friday gig and couldn't quite believe that they'd played a 45 song set. Happily they matched that on Saturday and played a set that spanned their whole career. It's hard to pick highlights but if I'm forced to do so I'd have to say Pictures Of You as that was beyond brilliant. Or maybe Plainsong. Or perhaps Just Like Heaven. Or From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea. It's too hard to pick one.

The full setlist was:

Main set: Plainsong, Prayers For Rain, A Strange Day, A Night Like This, Stop Dead, Push, Inbetween Days, 2 Late, Jupiter Crash, The End Of The World, Lovesong, Mint Car, Friday I'm In Love, Doing The Unstuck, Trust, Pictures Of You, Lullaby, Harold And Joe, The Caterpillar, The Walk, Sleep When I'm Dead, Just Like Heaven, From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, Want, The Hungry Ghost, Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, Disintegration

Lovesong


Encore 1: If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, Shake Dog Shake, Fascination Street, Bananafishbones, Play For Today, A Forest

A Forest


Encore 2: Catch, The Lovecats, Hot Hot Hot, Let's Go To Bed, Freakshow, Close To Me, Why Can't I Be You?

Encore 3: Boys Don't Cry, 10.15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab


Typing that setlist makes me realise how many things I missed out in my highlights above. Pictures Of You followed by Lullaby was incredible, One Hundred Years was so powerful, A Forest was one of the greatest things I have ever seen live and Killing An Arab tore the roof off the RAH.

I had high expectations of my first Cure show but they were so far exceeded it's difficult to fully explain how incredible it was. Please tour again Robert - I will certainly be there.

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