The Cure opens North American tour with hits, new songs, huge rarities — setlist and video
The Cure’s North American tour finally got underway Wednesday night in New Orleans, with Robert Smith and the band delivering a 29-song set.
The Cure’s North American tour finally got underway Wednesday night in New Orleans, with Robert Smith and the band delivering a 29-song set.
The list of Cure releases that Robert Smith has promised would come out in 2010 and beyond is quite long, and includes a new studio album, a new remix collection, DVD reissues of old concert films, a new series of live DVD releases and a box set of material recorded for the BBC. Here’s a rundown of what might have been.
The Cure delivered a marathon 40-song set tonight at London’s Eventim Apollo that included a full performance of 1984’s The Top, the live debut of rare B-side “A Man Inside My Mouth” and the reintroduction of songs not played live in decades. The band will perform again Monday and Tuesday nights.
The Cure’s two sold-out shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March are being billed as just the beginning of “a very busy 2014” for Robert Smith and Co., with the band today announcing plans to release the long-delayed companion to 2008’s 4:13 Dream and a series of live DVDs — and a third ‘Trilogy’ tour.
The Cure returned to Mexico last night for the second time this year, and while the band’s set didn’t quite match the epic length of its show on Robert Smith’s birthday in April, it did feature more surprises, including a heavy dose of The Top and the live debut of Head on the Door-era B-side “Stop Dead.”
The Cure has been no stranger to special Record Store Day releases — last year saw an expanded Entreat, plus reissues of the band’s first six albums in the U.K. — and this year’s no different, with an individually numbered, red-vinyl reissue of 1987’s ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ due out next month.
As Robert Smith first teased last summer, The Cure will return to South America for the first time in 17 years this April, mounting its first-ever large-scale tour of the continent, performing seven concerts in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Colombia — followed by a one-off show in Mexico City to end the trek.
The Cure’s Robert Smith reveals the band’s plans to tour South America: ‘We’re supposed to go there just after Easter next year. We’re going to play in every… not every country in South America. We’re not playing in Ecuador because people don’t play in Ecuador. But we’re playing Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela.’
The Cure played a 36-song set at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound 2012 peppered with surprises, including the first performance of ‘Fight’ since the ‘Kiss Me’ tour, only the third-ever performance of ‘The Caterpillar,’ a rare airing of ‘Dressing Up’ and the first-ever performance of B-side ‘Just One Kiss.’
Taking a page from Depeche Mode’s Alan Wilder, guitarist Porl Thompson this month will auction off dozens of personal items spanning his tenure(s) in The Cure, including a guitar played on ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ and ‘Wish,’ album artwork proofs and clothing ranging from a ‘black net catsuit’ to leather corsets.
Twenty-five years ago today, The Cure released ‘Standing on a Beach: The Singles,’ a seminal compilation — and yes, we’re talking about the cassette here, not the ‘Staring at the Sea’ CD — that stands alongside New Order’s ‘Substance’ and ‘Catching Up With Depeche Mode’ as one of the signpost compilations of the ’80s college rock era.
This French TV report from sometime in 1987 features footage and interviews with both The Cure and Depeche Mode in the studio, as they work on their breakout albums ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ and ‘Music For the Masses,’ respectively.
The deeply mournful ‘Same Deep Water As You’ — the centerpiece of the new ‘Disintegration: Deluxe Edition’ — is not just Slicing Up Eyeballs readers’ favorite song off that classic 1989 album, it’s their No. 1 all-time song by The Cure, according to our informal poll that wraps up ‘Disintegration’ Week.