A Night Like This

My love affair w/ The Cure can be traced all the way back to the early 80's,it may not've actually been "10:15 Saturday Night" when I first heard them but it was a Saturday nite in the living room of my best friends parents house in either 82 or 83 when I heard "Seventeen Seconds" and "Faith" on a C90 cassette,I'd never heard anyone like them and thus began a relationship that's lasted almost 30 years and shows no sign of ending......if only the same could be said of my personal relationships!!!

Fast forwarding to 1989 and the release of their magnus opus "Disintegration" this was a game changer,I suddenly went from liking The Cure to becoming a fully paid up member and card carrying Disciple Of The Church Of Robert Smith so much so that a former girlfriend once accused me of loving Robert Smith more than I loved her....she was probably right,the fact is she's long gone and Robert and The Cure are still very much a huge part of my life.

It would be another 3 years b4 I got to enjoy seeing The Cure live at The Spectrum in 92 on the "Wish" tour but it began a run of 9 shows in 19 years and counting and it was also when I got to meet them,more by luck than design I happened to work at the hotel they stayed in for the two Philly shows and got to meet the whole band,Robert,Simon,Porl,Boris and Perry that signed picture is a treasured possession along w/ the one of Robert that I had matted and framed complete w/ "To Kevin Best Wishes Robert Smith" signed in orange......in case you're curious why I always write The Cure in orange that was the title of their first ever live concert video and ever since then I've always done that.....Robert got a kick out of it when he signed the picture.
For as long as I live I'll Cherish the conversation Robert and I had outside his room,just two guys talking football,shooting the shit.

In 96 I flew home to London to see the "Wild Mood Swings" tour at Wembley Arena having already seen them here in Philly earlier that summer,in 98 I had second row seats at The Tower,in 2000 the "Bloodflowers" tour at Tweeter Center followed by the Curiosa Festival also at the Tweeter Center in 04 and then back to The Spectrum in 08 on the "4.13"tour a show that impressed me so much I went to New York at he end of the tour to see then again at famed Radio City Music Hall.

As you can see there tends to be a four gap between tours so I was thinking 2012 for the next Cure tour when out of nowhere it was announced that due to overwhelming demand to their two Australian "Reflections" shows they would perform seven more shows one in London,three in LA and three in New York at The Beacon,no stranger to a road trip to see The Cure I made sure to secure a ticket for the third and final show at The Beacon on Sunday and made plans to stay overnite as I knew from past experiences that a Cure concert can last over three hours.....

"Three Imaginary Boys"''Seventeen Seconds" and "Faith" have never sounded so good,"Faith" is one of my favourite Cure albums so I tend to listen to that alot but it was good to go back and listen to "Three Imaginary Boys" and "Seventeen Seconds" again "10:15 Saturday Night" and "Three Imaginary Boys" are live staples of a Cure concert,"A Forest" is one of my three all time favourite Cure songs and ever since the live "Paris" cd in 92 "At Night" has become a favourite,on "Seventeen Seconds" it's an ok album track but the live "Paris" version ROCKS so to see them perform it live was extra special
''Primary" is another live staple off of "Faith" but to hear "The Drowning Man" and "Faith" live was worth the price of admission alone.

The encores were to die for,three of them,17 songs in total:World War,I'm Cold,Plastic Passion,Killing An Arab,Jumping Someone Else's Train,Another Journey By Train for the first encore
Descent,Splintered In Her Head,Charlotte Sometimes,The Hanging Garden for the second encore followed by
Let's Go To Bed,The Walk,The Lovecats,The Caterpillar,Close To Me,Inbetween Days and Boys Don't Cry for the third and final encore,I was almost speechless when I left The Beacon.....and that takes some doing let me tell you!!

Will there be a new Cure album and tour next year? we can only hope,there is the upcoming "Bestival 2011" double live cd from this summers Isle Of Wight show to look forward to next week and the original "Reflections" show from Sydney to look forward to on dvd sometime in the not too distant future.
Fingers crossed a well deserved place in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame next year,we'll know in a few weeks if they've been elected,for a band written off after "Disintegration" in 89,"Wish" in 92 and again in 2000 w/ "Bloodflowers" they seem to go from strength to strength and frankly show little or no signs of slowing down or stopping.