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Photos

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 Reviews

Just got back from the show (yes, long trip.) I was in the 3rd row on Porl's side and was one of the people sending updates. Some notes:

Robert spent a lot of time gazing into the crowd.

There were two really beautiful young women in the front row on Porl's side trying to flirt with him, and he kept smiling and shaking his head. It was hilarious.

Yes, Porl did turn and shake his butt at the audience on at least one occasion.

Robert momentarily skipped ahead to the bridge in FTEOTDGS, and there were a few moments of chaos as the band tried to recover.

Robert and Porl put their foreheads together during the intro to A Forest. They appeared to be singing to each other and laughing.

Absolutely amazing version of Charlotte Sometimes. All around very tight, energetic performance. Torture seemed a little sloppy, though.

Robert tripped and almost knocked the mic stand over after Killing An Arab. Then, the house lights stayed down for an unusually long period of time after they left the stage, and they tweaked the stage lights even after the house lights came up--leads me to believe someone intervened to prevent a 3rd encore.

- Eric

Last Night, pioneering British Post Punk band The Cure performed a blistering three hour set at Cleveland's Wolstein Center arena. This was the first time The Cure had performed in Ohio since 2003's Curiosa Tour.

After an extremely dull and tiring opening set from dull as nails British indie-prog band 65 Days of Static, the lights went down as a sequenced swirling instrumental began. The Cure walked onto stage amid roars from the nearly sold out crowd.

Led by Robert Smith on vocals and guitar, this line up of the Cure also boasted long standing bass player Simon Gallup, drummer Jason Cooper, and, to the delight of longtime Cure fans, the return of the venerable Porl Thompson on guitar. Thompson's distinctive guitar playing has graced some of The Cure's greatest albums, including The Head on the Door, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss, Disintigration, and Wish.

The band launched into the long, dreary, powerful twin guitar epic of Open, also the opening track of 1992's Wish Album. Layer upon layer of squalling guitars built up an enourmous, dense wall of sound, locked by Gallup's melodic bass playing and Cooper's tight drumming. Lights flashed and the large video screens behind the band displayed vibrant, colorful abstract imagery as the song crashed into a brilliant climax.

Next up was Fascination Street, from 1989's Disintigration album, considered by many to be the Cure's best record. It was on this song that the lack of keyboards first became really noticeable. Keyboards and synthesizers have long been a prominent element of The Cure's sound, often carrying the main melody and hookline of a song. The Cure are currently touring without a keyboard player, so tonight Smith and Thompson play many of the lead keyboard melodies as roaring, searing lead guitar parts.

On many of the songs following Fascination Street, including A Night Like This, A Night Like This, The End of the World, Lovesong, Want, Pictures of You, Lullaby, The Perfect Boy, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Kyoto Song, Hot Hot Hot, The Only One, Charlotte Sometimes, and Torture, Robert Smith and Porl Thompson pounded lumps out of thier guitars, both performing spectacular lead and rhythm work, eash assisted by various effects pedals, while Gallup and Cooper pounded out tight, powerful, danceable drum and bass rhythms. With Smith and Thompson's loud, wailing guitars replacing the keyboard melodies inbetween some truely lovely solo work, The Cure sounded loud, heavy, and powerful, matched by a brilliant show of flashing multicolored lights and video imagery.

Robert Smith sang in truly fine voice, hitting all of the high notes as well as the low ones, and performing lovely lead guitar work that reminded me of Neil Young at his best with Crazy Horse. Clad in a baggy black dress shirt and gray pants, his hair teased high, Smith resembled a fright wigged teddy bear. When not playing guitar, Smith would wonder the stage and do these strange, funny little dances. Despite is general clumsiness, he was oddly charismatic.

After playing a few new songs from The Cure's upcoming new album, the best of which was Sleeps When I'm Dead, a fantastic guitar rock/dance hybrid, The Cure played a brilliant, fantastic sequence of hit singles and classic album tracks, building from Push, Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, Primary, Us or Them, Never Enough, and climaxing with roaring guitar heavy versions of Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, and End.

After exciting the stage to roaring applause, Smith and co. returned for a sweeping encore of four songs from The Cure's classic Seventeen Seconds album, climaxing in a gob smackingly intense version of A Forest.

Again leaving to rapturous applause, the band returned to play a final encore of songs from their first album, including the classics Fire In Cairo, Jumping Someone Else's Train, and Boys Don't Cry, ending the night with fast, fun, punky energy.

- Zachery Allan Starkey