Curiosa in Salt Lake City, Ut. (Aug. 18th, 2004)

The Cure paints it black for appreciative Usana crowd

By Sam Vicchrilli
The Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake Tribune

Not to be trite, but Wednesday was just like heaven for fans of The Cure. Not heaven in the sense of dreams come true and requited love, but
rather a gloomy place reserved for disillusioned, star-crossed lovers.
   The first song, "Lost," set the mood for the evening. Robert Smith and company took the stage, bathed in black, informing those gathered at
the Usana Amphitheater that "I can't find myself." The vocals were smoother than they are on the album, but the song lost none of its bite.
   The first six songs of the show bounced between the new album and "Disintegration," which many consider the band's magnum opus. During the
melodious "Plainsong," a grinning Smith strolled the stage, gazing over his cheering fans as though he intended to look each one of them in the face.
   The energy was palpable, and Smith's vocals were perfect, for "Fascination Street," followed by the latest single "The End of the World." Judging by crowd reaction, the new stuff is popular with the public.
   Smith donned an acoustic guitar for "Inbetween Days" and the popular "Just Like Heaven." The sweet and doleful "Pictures of You" had people
in the crowd exchanging knowing glances during the first few chords, acknowledging the connection they have to the band and its music.
   "Lullaby," in all its spidery creepiness, preceded the first outright happy song of the night, "Before Three," on which Smith sings about "the happiest day I knew." "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" was a layered musical orgy, second only in length and complexity to "Disintegration," a long, difficult song that the band nailed, especially at the angry climax.
   The crowd was surprisingly receptive to "A Hundred Years," one of the most depressing songs ever penned, accentuated by images of wartime
destruction projected onto a giant screen behind the stage. The regular set ended with Smith's favorite track off the new record, "The Promise."
   The Cure reached deep into its 25-year repertoire for the first encore, playing "M," "Play For Today," and "A Forest," all from 1980's
"Seventeen Seconds." A second encore featured the sweet, tuneful crowd pleasers "Close to Me," "Love Cats" and "Boys Don't Cry."
   Scotland's Mogwai opened the Curiosa festival, showcasing three samples of its brand of fuzzy, instrumental noise making. "Jewish, its
wicked reverberations, was an amazing oratory onslaught. Congrats to band leader Stuart Braithwaite for busting five of his guitar strings.
   Interpol had the crowd nodding with repetitive yet powerful hooks. "NYC," smooth and harmonious, was also strangely touching, especially
with the repeated lyric "It's up to me now turn on the bright lights."

(Thanks Nathan)

From Deseret Morning News:

The Curiosa festival is real pleaser

By Stephen Speckman
Deseret Morning News

THE CURIOSA FESTIVAL, THE Cure, USANA Amphitheatre, Wednesday.

fter 90 minutes of The Cure's main set, maybe the only explanation for an apparently staid crowd was that they were simply stunned by what they were hearing.
And why wouldn't they be?
The Cure gave up plenty of tireless classics and introduced live versions of several deep, dark songs off its new self-titled CD.
But wait — This is the 2004 Curiosa festival, almost six hours of music from seven bands.

Mogwai kicked things off at 5:20 p.m. and gave what fan Cory Cannon, 18, called a "hypnotic, awesome" performance. The Rapture and Interpol, both bands worth hearing, followed on the main stage.

On the nearby "B" stage, Scarling, Cooper Temple Clause and Cursive alternated between main-stage acts. Unfortunately for the B team, the sound system didn't measure up — but at least the music did.

Each band, not surprisingly complimentary to the main act in its own way, was hand-picked by The Cure lead singer/guitarist Robert Smith, keyboardist Roger O'Donnell, bass player Simon Gallup, guitarist Perry Bamonte and drummer Jason Cooper.

By 9:10 p.m. — time for Smith et al. to enter — the crowd seemed listless for the openers "Lost," "Plainsong" and "Labyrinth." All total, The Cure played five songs from its recent self-titled CD, which O'Donnell lamented in a recent interview is lacking in sales.

The new songs translated well live, but it may take time for fans of the radio hits to warm up to the new CD.

Heads were set to bobbing with "Fascination Street," "Lovesong," "In Between Days," "Just Like Heaven" and "Pictures of You," which, however, trivialized by its use in a recent commercial still sounded delightfully melancholy and somehow fresh.

By "Lullaby," Smith, dressed in an untucked, long-sleeve black button-down shirt and baggy cargo pants, was loose and animated. But under Smith's direction, neither he nor the band got personal with a mostly young audience, dressed mostly — and appropriately — in black.

Smith's red lipstick and mercilessly teased hair was still holding up for "Before Three," "The Edge of The Deep Green Sea" and "alt.end" from the new CD, which yielded the evening's most dramatic song, "The Promise" to close out the 15-song set.

Smith tried a brief chat at the start of the first encore and said something about, "You can't say that here," only you couldn't hear what he said before that. He slapped himself on the head and the group launched into "M," followed by "Play for Today" and an echo-filled rendition of "A Forest." And, hey, Smith was actually smiling at this point.

The second and final encore featured "Close to Me," "Lovecats" and "Boys Don't Cry," a musical lovefest for fans who demanded the danceable hits with their catchy bass lines, beats and riffs. At a little after 11 p.m., the crowd was finally awake, just in time for a "Thank you" from Smith and a "We'll see you again.

(Thanks Ryan)

One fateful day in 1989 I heard the Disintegration album for the first time and discovered The Cure. This was no small feat given that I was growing up in a small town in Wyoming of all places. Thanks are in order to Eric Boehme and others like him for importing the music of The Cure and other bands of the era from Salt Lake City and Denver to a culturally barren rural Wyoming town. My life was never the same again.

For reasons too numerous to recount here, it took me 11 years to finally see The Cure live in 2000 when the Dream Tour stopped here in Salt Lake
City. (Again, a shout goes out to Royce for landing the 4th row seats stage left at the E Center---perfect Cuzzie, just perfect.) As many of you know, the Salt Lake City show was one of the best of the entire Dream Tour (at least Robert thought so). For my part, I was on full emotional override for 2 hours and 51 minutes at that show---a fact readily apparent from the review I wrote to chainofflowers.com that same night. I had no voice for 2 days because, for nearly 3 hours that night, I absolutely brutalized my vocal cords, screaming at the top of my lungs and belting out lyrics song after song. Some of the emotion I experienced that night undoubtedly stemmed from the relief I felt at finally seeing my favorite band after waiting so many years. Hearing the boys rip it up on Disintegration was a near-religious experience that I will never forget as long as I live. Want was incredible, I
absolutely love that song. One Hundred Years was dark and delicious. And, I seriously choked up when the wind-chimes led us into Plainsong.
Memories . . . .

Two days ago, I had the privilege of seeing The Cure for a second time in Salt Lake City, this time from the pit at Usana Amphitheatre. While
the second time around was not anything like my deflowering of 4 years ago, I was once again stunned at how AMAZING The Cure is live. The set
was great---no matter how much bitching there has been about the so-called "pop nightmare." How can anyone not want to hear Just Like Heaven and Inbetween Days? Lost was soooo good live as an opener and Disintegration was killer, even though Roger was dealing with some technical problems throughout most of the song. (I have to say that he seemed kind of grumpy all night---only complaint). The Promise translates so well to the stage and it's obvious that Robert really loves that song. A Forest was incredible with Robert and Simon riding their instruments into the ground by the end of it.

The highlight of the night though was that by the beginning of the second encore, I had finally made it the stage barrier, stage right. Robert came to the front of the stage during Close to Me and flirted with the crowd throughout the song. At that point I was probably within fifteen feet of him and he was standing right above us. In the chaos that followed that song, I finally got one hand on the bar and during Lovecats there was nothing but thin air between me and a living legend---it was just surreal. I'd love to know how some of you have managed to meet the band, hang with them until 4:30 in the morning (e.g., Patrick McCleary), etc . . . I would kill to meet Robert, get one picture taken with him, and have him autograph my copy of
Disintegration. Ahhh well, there's always next time. Third time's a charm right?

Finally, the frosting on the cake was when, at the conclusion of the second and final encore, Robert lingered, then came back to the mic and said the following: "Thank you, you've all made this a fucking excellent day for everyone! Good night! We'll see you again." In reading Crystal Havey's review from the Denver show, I too was anxiously waiting to see if Robert would say this to us on this night. He did and I smiled all the way home.

Until next time, I'll be "Planning all my days away, but never finding ways to stay, or ever feel enough today, tomorrow must be more."

(Thanks Nathan)

Well first off, I've been waiting years to see The Cure live, unfortunatly they weren't playing my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on this tour so I finally decided to just take a 18 hour road trip to the nearest city to see them, and it was definitly well worth it.

I arrived at the USANA ampitheater at about 4:30 after a 6 hour drive down to Salt Lake City from West Yellowstone. We had trouble finding the
venue because the map we got off mapquest ironically just led us to a Church of Jesus Christ and Later Day Saints (there sure are a lot of those in SLC).

Anyways, after I finally got to the ampitheater, I spent a good $350 on merchandise, and then went and found myself a spot in front of the stage
for Mogwai.

Mogwai was absolutely incredible, they're one of my favorite bands, and I was about as excited to see them as I was to see The Cure. All there songs sound way better live than they do on record. They finished the set off with the 20 minute epic My Father My King, which was probably the most incredible thing I've ever heard from a live band. The sound was absolutely huge. They finished the song off with a good 5 minutes of feedback, which I enjoyed.

Scarling was, well, they were the generic high school goth girl band. Boring as hell, watched about 1 song of theres and then went back to the main stage to get ready for The Rapture. Their singer had the most horrible stage presence I've ever seen. But I met Roger briefly during their set, he was in the audience watching them. He seemed bothered that I was trying to talk to him when he was trying to watch a band, which was completely understandable, especially since this was Scarlings first day on the tour.

The Rapture was a lot better than I expected. Before this show I can't say I really liked them at all, but after this show, I've been listening to their cd quite a bit. Probably the most fun band of the night. Good stage presence, the cow bell guy is hilarious. I had fun dancing to them.

I saw one of cooper temple clauses songs, and then decided to just go and get food. They were alright, but I wasn't too impressed.

Interpol was incredible. Their sound was perfect, almost sounded exactly like they do on their cd. There really isn't much I can say about them.
They were good, and I really couldn't expect more from them. They seemed to make it a point to smoke while they played, which I think was pretty
lame.

I saw about 2 minutes of Cursive, and then I spent the rest of their set visiting with my mom.

The Cure, well, words can't describe how good The Cure were. They played a perfect set, the sound was good the entire time, Robert only messed up
the lyrics once, during Lullaby, and then he laughed about it after. As I said, I've been waiting years for this, and it was more than I could have ever expected. Roberts guitar died while they were playing A Forest, and it looked like he was getting mad at the roadie about it. All their darker songs were extremely intense, especially 100 Years. I didn't really pay attention to their background videos at all.

Anyways, I'm at a internet cafe right now, and my time is up, so I have to go.

- Ben

Thank you to The Cure for the amazing concert they gave in Salt Lake City! What an awesome night! And thank you for playing my two most favorite songs Boys Don't Cry and Love Cats (Sorry Simon). Fascination Street was great, and so was The Promise. Robert Smith could not have sounded better!!!! He was right on last night! It was an all around incredible concert, the best I have ever been too! Thank you for playing for a long time and thanks for coming to good old Salt Lake!! Hope to see you again on tour!!!

- Jill

The Cure took the stage at 9:07. Robert was very animated....the most I have ever seen him in fact. The crowd was playing off it quite well. They left the stage at 11:05.

I am like Bennion, I wanted a miserable show. Everything was in our favor to get it. They played pop in Denver, and the day was over cast and rainy in SLC. Plus, the last time they were in SLC they put on the best show of the Dream Tour. (According to Robert). I guess it just wasn't supposed to happen. The show had great flow to it and I respect the band for all of the hits they have, I just wanted to hear Figurehead, Faith, and the like.

The sound is one thing I can complain about. This was the worst sound I have ever heard at a Cure show, which is a complement to the band. The
sound was still far better than any other band out there, just not up to Cure standards for me. As you know, they can play a tin can and make it sound great. Last night was so loud it sounded distorted. My friend was at the back of the pit (I was up front) and he said it sounded great. It must have been where I was standing. Hopefully it sounded good to everyone else too. Roger had a brief situation with his monitors, Perry had to mess around with his guitar equipment during Disintegration, and Robert's guitar went out on A Forest. Robert had to explain to his tech how to wire the thing to the amp mid-way through the song. He was pissed, but laughed about it later. Perhaps, the festival equipment is what caused the poor sound? But then again, isn't this a Cure show in disguise of a festival?

One more thing for you Craig, Perry told me after the show that the rescheduled Washington show will be a Cure only show and will last about 3 hours. That is great news for anyone traveling in that direction. The other guys didn't talk about the tour with me, just regular football chit-chat and the like. Robert was polite but quiet. In the end, the poor set list was made up for with me being able to hang out till 4:30 with them. Now for the Interpol set: Ob 1, Roland, Evil, NYC, Angels, Slow Hands, Leif, NARC, PDA.

- Patrick McCleary

I am assuming there are no posts yet because we are all still trying to recover from an amazing show.

Just to get it out of the way, it was quite a pop heavy set. But it was awesome. I had excellent seats thanks to my sweet hubby Matt! My sister Jill, cousin Natalie, Matt and I were sitting a few rows behind the pit area just to the right side of the stage.

So first off the boys come on stage to wild applause and play "Lost" A great start. Then “Plainsong” which I have always wanted to see live. Way cool! Robert walked from one side of the stage to the other looking out at the crowd just taking it all in. I looked around me and so far not many were singing along but then comes "Fascination Street" and a bunch of songs everyone knows. "End of the World", "Lovesong", "Inbetween Days", "Just Like Heaven", "Pictures of You" all of them amazing! Then "Lullaby" starts. So wasn't expecting that. He did a little "creep step" towards the mic and had his fingers all spider like finally getting them caught in his spider web hair "Before Three" quieted the group around me for a bit. Then Matt and I went nuts as "FTEOTDGS" started (I think we drove a few people crazy) I fell in love with this song at a concert, but it was Matt’s first time hearing it live! They played the heck out of it -it was just amazing. "alt.end" I thought was Great but I decided not many around me had listened to the new disk much. Through alt.end and "Disintegration" people were starting to sit down. "100 Years" got a few back up but "The Promise"
put them back down again, which was really sad seeing as it was probably the most incredible song live. Again Robert, Simon and Perry played the
heck out of it. They just tore into it and the lighting was awesome.

They walked off stage then quickly came back out and played "my encore". Enjoyed "M" Loved Play for today. I was so glad to hear that live. Then "A Forest" and ya’ have to watch Simon throughout "A Forest" My Gosh he was amazing and is it just me or is he just Sexy when he plays! Again
Simon tore into the final cords. Too cool.

We knew time was ticking away it was 10:55 we were hoping for just one more song.

Then came Jill’s Encore. Starting out with Roberts fight comments and kind of hitting at his head with both hands to make the point. Then "Close to Me". Robert pulled the microphone from the stand and stood at the edge of the stage singing. This was Jill's first Cure concert. She was holding out hope to hear "Lovecats" So when "Close to Me" ended and "Lovecats" began she was a happy girl. Simon of course stood with his back to the crowd. Then they did a quick guitar change. We were excited and surprised that there would be a 3rd song in this encore. "Boys Don't Cry" topped off a fun cool set. Robert said "We'll see you again" They ended at 11:05. I know Robert was talking a bit more then I have written but I had "Concert Ears" I couldn't hear much that wasn't pumped through a speaker. Should have brought earplugs. I love how each time they leave the stage Robert kind of lingers.

In past reviews I had read the comment of being worn out at the end and wondering how we ever made it through a 3 hour set. I have to add my thoughts on that. Going into it, I too was disappointed for a shorter show. But they definitely delivered. They didn't mess around between songs. There were a few guitar problems Perry and Robert both had some feed back issues and crew men were on the stage to help out a couple of times. But even those moments help you realize how cool it is to be listening to an amazing band, how incredible they sound Live. How balanced their music and voice are. I for one appreciate more that Robert can actually sing. After all of that typing In a word AMAZING! Thanks Guys I look forward to next time.

- Melanie Lloyd

Just a quick review here. The festival itself was just amazing. Mogwai's famed wall of sound is the best thing I've heard live in quite sometime. I hope they come back soon. Other highlights for me were the rapture and cooper temple clause. Great sets by both bands. (we need more cow bell!)

The Cure came on around 9pm and as soon as I heard 'Lost' i thought damnit! another 'pop' show. And sure enough... which was still great. The guys put on one fine show. 22 songs of mostly hits if you check the set list, which was a little disappointing for me. The darker songs came across very intense and very powerful. 'Disintegration' and 'The Promise' were amazing. And of course 'One Hundred Years' blew everyone away. Anyway... another fantastic show by the boys. Still waiting to hear 'Faith' live...maybe next time. Oh and btw... Robert's voice sounds so good. Anyone else notice this? I mean he was right on last night. Very animated on the pop stuff too. Cheers.

- Bennion