“Hello Manchester, it’s been a long time,” Robert Smith,
draped in black and smudged in kohl, hurriedly mumbles into the microphone as
he switches guitars. It isn’t a curt greeting, but rather one born of nervous
habits; Smith has never been the most comfortable man in the world when it
comes to stage patter. What he lacks in apparent social confidence is made up
for considerably in his talent as a musician, lyricist and conductor of some of
the finest gothic rock material ever to come out of the movement, a curator of
frozen pop gems and giddy heartbreak anthems. The Cure, for all its members, is
driven by Smith and his angst-ridden melodies, and behind a microphone, he has
not lost his touch for deft introspection and rousing melodrama.
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| Simon Gallup and Robert Smith of The Cure, live in New Zealand, 2016. (Courtesy of thecuremexico). |
The last time The Cure played mainland Britain, they turned
out a trio of Christmas shows at London’s famed Hammersmith Apollo, each
exceeding forty songs and three hours in length, an exquisitely crafted
showcase of deep cuts and celebrated ditties that rewarded the hardcore
follower. This outing – a positively breezy twenty-three song, two hour show –
still takes time to tip its hat to the core fanbase, but otherwise skews
towards the more casual devotee with the group cramming it full with some of
their biggest hits.
Entering to Shake Dog
Shake, taken from 1984’s The Top,
Smith and company – including long-time bassist Simon Gallup, keyboardist Roger
O’Donnell, drummer Jason Cooper and ex-Tin Machine guitarist Reeves Gabrels –
are unsurprisingly tight after several years on the road together, but still
find pleasing ways to freshen up compositions and performances. Flanked by a
misshapen collection of amps and Reading F.C. flags, and backed by five
horizontal strip screens, they experiment sonically across the multitude of genres
that they encompass, embellishing A Night
Like This with bluesy riffing and The
Walk with disco-rhythm flourishes. On the relatively poppy Push, they take a heavier line,
underpinned by swinging drums and a scuzzy lick or two from the fretboard.
The step back into arenas brings out hidden strengths to
their performance, but also serves as an Achilles heel at points. The visual
spectacle is impressive; during the springy In
Between Days, the band are bathed in sharp, rainbow colours that gives the
impression the normally dark-clad band have been involved in a paint factory
explosion. Later on, for the punishing One
Hundred Years, quick image flashes of the Somme, Auschwitz, Vietnam,
Cambodia and Iraq – now all rendered in monochrome – appear behind the wall of
noise the band creates, forming part of a hellish sensory overload.
At times however, the arena sound system undercuts what is a
brilliant, thrilling show. During the beautiful, slinky lovelorn Pictures of You, Smith’s plaintive wail
is buried under a messy mix that threatens to swallow him whole. On the driving
Primary, Gallup’s bass blots out
every other noise in the venue. But the band power through these technical
gremlins to deliver some truly gorgeous renditions of Lovesong and Just Like Heaven,
exquisite in presentation and reception. The warning shriek of Want is a high point, building to a
noise-rock drenched crescendo, whilst Sinking,
perhaps the rarest cut, culled from The
Head on The Door, is a ghostly ethereal exercise in conjuring moody
atmospherics, all echoing soundscapes that float on the breeze. It is
gloriously gothic, superbly executed.
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| Robert Smith and Jason Cooper of The Cure, performing live at Bestival in 2016. (Courtesy of Red Bull). |
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