Gary Biddles, a onetime roadie for The Cure who sang in Fools Dance and Presence in the ’80s and ’90s, each of which featured members of that band, has died, according to former Cure keyboardist Lol Tolhurst. The details surrounding Biddles’ death are not yet known.
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 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.’
The Cure tonight played the first of at least 19 European festival dates on the books this summer, and Robert Smith had a little secret to reveal at Holland’s famed Pinkpop Festival: new guitarist Reeves Gabrels, a former David Bowie collaborator who previously recorded with Smith in the late ’90s.
The Cure headlined the U.K.’s Bestival tonight, delivering a 32-song set filled with hits and a few lesser-aired tracks — including the first performance of ‘The Caterpillar’ in 20 years — with a lineup that included the return of keyboardist Roger O’Donnell, who says he’s back in the band for the third time.
The Cure has just wrapped up a 44-song, nearly four-hour performance at Australia’s famed Sydney Opera House — a concert that found Robert Smith & Co. running through the band’s first three albums in their entirety and reuniting with former keyboardists Lol Tolhurst and Roger O’Donnell.
Ousted keyboardist Lol Tolhurst will rejoin The Cure after 22 years to help perform the band’s first three albums — 1979’s ‘Three Imaginary Boys,’ 1980’s ‘Seventeen Seconds’ and 1981’s ‘Faith’ — in their entirety on May 31 and June 1 at the Vivid Live Festival at Australia’s famed Sydney Opera House.
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