Perhaps The Cure were on to something after all when they abruptly ended Friday night’s warm-up gig in Las Vegas.
Practice for the main event?
Sunday night, Robert Smith and Co.’s headlining set at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival barrelled well past the fest’s 12:01 a.m. curfew, and organizers ultimately pulled the plug mid-song — even though they spared Paul McCartney the indignity two nights earlier.
According to reports from A Chain of Flowers and the Los Angeles Times, The Cure played about 33 minutes past curfew before Coachella officials acted, first cutting off the main PA during “Boy’s Don’t Cry” — so the only sounds came from the band’s on-stage monitors — and then shutting down all power as the band tried to segue from “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” to “Grinding Halt” (see video below).
The Times reports that the city of Indio charges Coachella $1,000 per minute if acts continue past curfew; McCartney’s set apparently blew curfew by “50-plus” minutes.
Police and promoters, however, declined to stop McCartney’s set. But they had no problem pulling the plug on The Cure. As the Times’ Todd Martens noted, “As for why The Cure was stopped and McCartney wasn’t, that probably has something to do with the fact that Robert Smith wasn’t in the Beatles.”
Smith, prone to all-caps tirades on his band’s Web site, has yet to weigh in. Stay tuned.
Setlist: The Cure, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, 4/19/09
“Underneath The Stars”
“Prayers For Rain”
“A Strange Day”
“alt.end”
“The End of the World”
“Lovesong”
“To Wish Impossible Things”
“Pictures of You”
“Lullaby”
“From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea”
“The Perfect Boy”
“Wrong Number”
“Push”
“Inbetween Days”
“Just Like Heaven”
“Primary”
“Shake Dog Shake”
“The Hungry Ghost”
“Disintegration”
“One Hundred Years”
“It’s Over”
“If Only Tonight We Could Sleep”
“The Kiss”
“At Night”
“M”
“Play For Today”
“A Forest”
“Three Imaginary Boys”
“Fire In Cairo”
“Boys Don’t Cry”
“Jumping Someone Else’s Train”
“Grinding Halt” (aborted)
Video: The Cure, “Jumping Someone Else’s Train/Grinding Halt,” Coachella, 3/19/09
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS:
