"I'm marked for Life"...

My first encounter with The Cure was in 1980, when my father brought 17 Seconds at home, I was very young (5 years old), but my parents have always listened to music, and my father had some very strange tastes. Other albums too found their way home, but I was too young to appreciate them. I heard them from my parents...

One week-end, Sunday lunch time, we watched TV (a programm called "L'echo des Savanes" starring famous rock bands) and they a introduced a group who had some success in France, The Cure...It was in 1982, at the end of spring, it was nearly the end of school, that's why I remember the day...The Cure came on stage, they played tracks from Pornography, I don't remember how many, but A Strange Day was very impressive for a 7-year-old boy.

For the following years, there was always Cure music at home, along with magazines with pictures and interviewes of Robert and co....Others albums followed Pornography, then came the year 1985 in France, and suddenly everybody got to know The Cure; Robert became huge and was everywhere on TV and other media. Some older friends (I was 10 years old) told me that their brothers liked The Cure, so they listened to them too...When I told them that I already knew that band, I almost became a God to their eyes, you know what children and teenagers are like...

My father and I went to see them during the Kissing tour '87 in Bordeaux. I was 12, and my father wanted to protect me because he was afraid of the crowd (in France, The Cure always had a bad reputation because of the audience, they have reputation as junkies alkies. Back then, a lot of adults didn't like them because of the picture painted by the press and jealous French rock bands...). I only remenber the video "Tea Time" and the sound very loud for my 12-year-old ears...

Then came publicity for Disintegration on TV, the sound of a clock ticking and the days left for the album release. It was the first album I bought with my own money. I earned it by taking empty bottles from a restaurant to a glass container... I bought on tape; CDs had just appeared and were VERY expensive. For my birthday, a schoolfriend, his parents and his brother offered me a ticket to see the band in Bordeaux (again) during the Prayer Tour. We went there by car and took our seats to see the gig (again, the parents were afraid of the crowd). I was 14, and I remember the lights, and the tracks from Disintegration (oh, the chimes from Plainsong).

The years passed, I started to work, and the Wish tour stormed the planet. For the first time, I went to a Cure gig all alone with friend...I still remember a lot of things, even 16 years on, I was at the front row, very hot (yet again in Bordeaux), excited, the lights, the arrival of the band on stage, etc... Due to excitement, I didn't sleep for two nights...Then, I started to listen to other bands, but always connected to The Cure, my English improved, and magazines turned up at my house, in both French and English. The Cure always stayed like a toy we'd played with for a long time and that we left for others, but I always returned to it whenever memorable events in my life occurred...

Then came Wild Mood Swings, and the great deception, but having a new Cure album out, it spurred me on to dig up all the others, again and again. At that time, I started to have a good collection of items (discs, interviewes, collectors albums, bootlegs, some very, too, expensive...).

Bloodflowers came out, and I told myself, well, a new album, not a masterpiece, but a good one. I went and see them in Grenoble, I was working very hard, the show was disappointing, but seeing them on stage is always a grateful experience. The Cure came out in 2004, and I told myself, that at last, the group found his sound with this new line-up. I met my wife-to-be, I remember one of her first sentences "If we get married, I know that I'll wed a little part of The Cure as well". I thought "pffff, that's real, 18 years of listening, reading, and seeing The Cure, I'm marked for Life".

We saw them in St-Malo in Summer 2005, I remember of seing the return of Porl, but the gig wasn't really fantastic...Then started the long wait of the new album. During our wedding ceremony, I asked my wife to play Lovesong in the church, and Doing the Unstuck when we left (for the lyrics...). Some friends told me that it had always been my dream to have some Cure tracks played in a church and it's true. But I keep Faith for some funerals...

The 4Tour started, and I became excited, I wanted to see them in Paris at least one time in my life (The Cure in Paris, it's an old lovesong), my wife got hold of the tickets, and offered me mine at Christmas. I cried for the second time in my adult life (the first was at the City Hall when we married). We went and saw them with a close friend who was my bestman at my wedding... This show, that was a childhood dream, and I wasn't disappointed, 3h 30mins of live music; my wife with me, and there's nothing more I can say...The singles arrived, and, deep inside me, I'm disappointed. They sound like the 1987-1992 era, which for me is the real sound of The Cure...Nevertheless, the new singles don't convince me. Like with the last few albums, I'm a bit scared of what will be on the new one. When I hear "Freakshow", I think The Cure are very bad when they try to make bad U2 stuff...

My wife is expecting a baby, I told her that I'll play Plainsong when he is here, just for the chimes... And when I die, I asked her to play Faith at the funerals, the live version of Turin in 1989...I only hope that my son (or daughter) will have a good taste in music, like that of his (or her) father.

(From: Stanislas, Chateugay, France)