Monday, May 12, 2008

Cure gets glowing review from Philly Inquirer

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The Cure, 65daysofstatic play Wachovia Spectrum
By David R. Stampone

Not a bad gig for England's 65daysofstatic (also known as 65DOS) - getting tapped by the mighty Cure to open for the goth-pop-plus legends' entire North American tour. Their band name was even on one of the "The Cure Tour4 2008" T-shirts. Talk about exposure.

And the Sheffield lads did impress those who saw them Saturday at the Wachovia Spectrum, just the second date of a tour that will conclude next month with a three-venue stand in New York City. (They wisely kept their late-spring schedule clear after the Cure scuttled plans to tour last fall with 65DOS.)

But offering an engaging half-hour of their Mogwai-meets-Aphex Twin danceable post-rock to early arrivals only went so far. One patron, smoking outside between acts, was heard to say, "Pretty good - might download some of their stuff, maybe."

Then the Cure hit the stage, and the band unexpectedly overwhelmed in terms of quality, quantity and evidence of a throbbing musical pulse. Through 35 songs lasting almost three hours, the streamlined English post-punk-and-on band that traces its origins to Crawley, Sussex, circa 1976, scaled highs that included material off their 13th studio album (a double), scheduled for September release. Sexy single "The Only One" - coming out tomorrow - came off well, and "The Perfect Boy" was even better.

"I really don't know what I'm doing here," began Cure centerpiece Robert Smith in the show's first track, "Open" (also 1992's Wish album-starter). But the 49-year-old vocalist-guitarist, in loose black pants and shirt and, as ever, topped by stringy black hair framing a whitened face with inexactly applied red lipstick and smudgy guyliner, was not to be taken literally. He clearly enjoyed himself, leading ace guitarist Porl Thompson (a goth-glam fashion plate in sparkling ruby platform shoes), key veteran Simon Gallup on bass, and drummer Jason Cooper back for three encore sets.

The final seven-song barrage found Smith's famously high warble as strong as ever in the band's setlist-designated "Old School Encore." He surged through tracks off the 1979 debut album Three Imaginary Boys and first single, from 1978 - the night-closing "Killing An Arab" (lyrics altered in 2006 to "Killing Another" to prevent people misinterpreting Smith's original riff on the plotline of Albert Camus' novel The Stranger). Potently poetic, pensively dark, yet cheerfully cute, Smith has known what he's doing all along.

10 comments:

  1. Nice.. plus the reviewer really seems to know his stuff.

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  2. The reviewer notes that the new album is a double...

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  3. the reviewer probably based that on old information re: double album. at this point, there's no need to get ourselves in a tizzy. all the songs will come out at some point, right?

    :)

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  4. Did you notice on the encore list that a Faith encore is listed, with The Holy Hour, Other Voices, The Drowning Man, and Faith? I guess that we're not getting All Cats Are Grey on this tour, but I won't complain about the others.

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  5. Shawn - that Faith encore was on the European setlists too, and they never played it. If they didn't play it in Europe, what are the chances of them playing it over here?

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  6. Well, I think that the chances are better, but we'll see. I do remember them playing a rather nice Faith encore during the Dream Tour, which included All Cats Are Grey, The Drowning Man, and Fath, though they trimmed off TDM for the Toronto show. Also, remember that the US got Forever twice during Curiosa, while Europe didn't get it at all during the festival shows.

    Speaking of Toronto and Curiosa, why has the link to the Curiosa Toronto show not worked in at least the last year or so?

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  7. One of many files that were lost to an accidental deletion.

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  8. EVERYTHING from then is lost? Oh, well, not a big deal. You can thank me later... :)

    http://web.archive.org/web/20050419140859/
    ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/
    ChainofFlowers/august0904.html

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  9. Oh, and by "EVERYTHING", I meant all of the Toronto reviews. You should be able to find all of the other lost shows at the Internet Archive, as well.

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  10. Yeah, I found a bunch of the missing files at the internet archive, not all, but a bunch. One day I will get around to restoring them. But I've been saying that for 2 or 3 years.

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