It’s probably a couple of decades too late, but Robert Smith is finding that his deepest fears are coming true. Now aged 65, he recently fretted about whether he’d make it to 70 – and still be around to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Cure. Certainly, the coal-black angst and existential melancholia that has become the band’s stock-in-trade has taken on an additional potency in the last few years: health scares proliferated, loved ones have died. We have become used to venerable artists like Dylan, Neil Young and Springsteen ruminating on ageing and mortality, now it seems that it’s Smith’s turn to manage the problematic business of growing old.
When Seventeen Seconds came out in 1980, it gave The Cure their unique voice, setting them on a path that took them from tortured post-punk doomsayers to alt-goth superstars with 1989’s Disintegration – an album which included some of the band’s sweetest songs (“Pictures Of You”, “Lovesong”) and their most fraught (“Disintegration”, “Fascination Street”). On the title track, Smith was already predicting “how the end always is”; he was just 30.
Songs from both Seventeen Seconds and Disintegration feature significantly in tonight’s show – as if Smith is deliberately showing us his workings, tracing a specific throughline that leads to their new album, Songs Of A Lost World. The ‘lost world’ is the promise and optimism the Apollo 11 Moon landing represented to the 10-year-old Smith. In “Endsong”, one of Smith’s most straightforwardly autobiographical songs, he is “outside in the dark staring at the blood red moon / Remembering the hopes and dreams I had and all I had to do / And wondering what became of that boy and the world he called his own / I’m outside in the dark wondering how I got so old”.
Powered by Jason Cooper’s hypnotic drum tattoo, “Endsong” is a highlight of the band’s first set – Songs Of A Lost World played in full. This allows us to take stock of The Cure in 2024, a band partly changed by the events of the last few years, but coming back together to usher in their latest milestone, their first album of new music for 16 years. There are other reasons to celebrate, too. Smith takes a moment to reveal that he and Simon Gallup are celebrating 45 years of performing live together. Essentially Smith’s consigliere, Gallup, dressed tonight in a leopard-skin overcoat, offers a more dynamic and dramatic stage presence than his capo, prowling the stage, delivering low-slung basslines that run from teeth-rattling heaviosity to alienated funk. Elsewhere, Roger O’Donnell returns to keyboards following his battle with lymphoma while another old face, multi-instrumentalist Perry Bamonte, has been back in the band since 2022. As much as it is a celebration of music, tonight also feels like a testament to enduring friendships. Of the ‘junior’ members, Reeves Gabrels (now a mere decade into his tenure with the band) is more naturally inclined to stretch out in the songs – no doubt his expansive solos on “A Night Like This” and “From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea” dovetail with Smith’s unabated love for Hendrixian flourish.
When the band reach the Seventeen Seconds section – “At Night”, “M”, “Secrets”, “Play For Today” and “A Forest” – they build on the wintry minimalism of the original album, underscoring the keen melodies that power Smith’s songwriting. A triumphant, hit-laden home stretch – “Lullaby”, “The Walk”, “Friday I’m In Love”, “Close To Me”, “Why Can’t I Be You?”, “Boys Don’t Cry” – reinforces both the celebratory nature of tonight’s show and the unspoken camaraderie that exists between Smith and his bandmates. The resilience of these songs and the resilience of The Cure are there for us to marvel at.
The Cure setlist:
Alone
And Nothing Is Forever
A Fragile Thing
Warsong
Drone:Nodrone
I Can Never Say Goodbye
All I Ever Am
Endsong
Plainsong
Pictures Of You
High
Lovesong
Burn
Fascination Street
A Night Like This
Push
Inbetween Days
Just Like Heaven
From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
Disintegration
At Night
M
Secrets
Play For Today
A Forest
Lullaby
The Walk
Friday I’m In Love
Close To Me
Why Can’t I Be You? Boys Don’t Cry