"On meeting The Cure"

I first heard of The Cure from my older sister. I don't remember exactly how she heard of them. This was probably back in the late 80's. I wasn't quite into music yet, but I would play card games with my sister in her room and The Cure would always be in the background. I remember that I didn't like the band, because of the way my sister started acting. She shaved the back of her head and started wearing strange clothes. Not so much Goth, but totally different from normal. A lot of thrift store shopping.

When I was about 13, in 1993, I was with a friend and I heard The Cure again...the Show CD. In that car ride I realized that I truly liked the Cure. The music and the lyrics were brilliant. And I practically knew all of the words from those days of playing cards in my sisters room. I immediately became obsessed with the band. Literally, the Cure and Robert Smith were all I thought of everyday. I bought every CD they had, oversized posters, T-shirts, anything Cure related. I even started buying vinyl records and I didn't even own a record player. I found chat rooms that were solely based on the Cure. To talk to other Cure fans was amazing, because there weren't that many around. My sister had even grown out of them a little bit.

My first concert was the Wild Mood Swings tour in 96. It was amazing. I just couldn't believe how phenomenal they were. I didn't get bored or sit one-second of the show. I look back at that show with such fond memories. It will never compare to any other show. 3 hours of simply the Cure and no opening band to sit through. I loved that. I wanted to see them again so badly. I would email them and beg them to come back. I said it would be a "dream" to see them again. Ironically enough when they toured again in 2000 it was called the Dream tour. I always wondered if I helped them think of that title. Or perhaps it was a dream for a lot of people.

When they came back to the states they played a few promo shows. I was the first in line to get tickets here in Atlanta. It didn't matter. The tickets sold out in seconds. I was so upset. The radio stations hoarded all of the tickets and had giveaways. I tried and tried winning, bu to no avail. Then finally a day or so before the show, I actually won! I was the 99th caller and I answered their question right. They listed 4 song titles and I had to know which wasn't a real Cure song. Not only did I win 2 tickets, but I also got to go to the stage rehearsals.

The day of the show, before we enter the venue we are told "no camera's and don't even try talking to them." I was upset because I wanted to bring my camera and my number 1 goal for the past 6 years had been to meet Robert Smith. We went in, listened to the band jam a little bit and then finally he came out. I was 2 feet away from Robert Smith! It was amazing, I can still remember it like it was yesterday. He sang a few songs and then it was time to wrap things up. We were ushered to leave. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't be that close and not meet him. As everyone else was leaving, I turned around and said loudly Robert! He knelt down on the stage to greet me. We spoke a few minutes and he signed several posters that I had. I even made him laugh. Then the rest of the crowd saw what I was doing and they turned around as well. The whole band signed things for us.

At one point a lady was taking pictures. I was so bummed because we had taken our camera to the car. I told Robert that and he said I could go get it. The security guard up front would not comply. I said "but ROBERT SMITH said I could go get it!" To no avail. I was so disappointed and I let the security guard know it. As a gesture of kindness he let us stand at the front of the line to this general admission show. Once inside we were right there in front. I also got to take a few live shots, because we had gotten our camera back by then. Still to this day I am bothered that I didn't just sneak my camera in. So there it was, my dream had came true. I met the Cure and I got to be front row of such an intimate concert.

Now to Today, My attitude towards the Cure has changed. I still love them and I consider them my favorite band, but the passion I once had for them is gone. In my opinion the albums have started going down hill. Bloodflowers was good, better than Wild Mood Swings. But I just don't care for the last album The Cure. No song at all on that album really appeals to me. Maybe it's just I haven't given it a fair try. But I never had to "try" before. I just loved the songs the first time I heard them. Then there is a little underlying bitterness that I have inside. I don't know where I read this but Robert Smith said in an article something like "if you don't like this new album, then you are not a true Cure fan."

That statement was quite a blow to me. In my opinion I was a huge fan. I mean, I did own everything they made and I listened to their music all the time knowing all the lyrics. I traveled to Baltimore and even London to see them perform. How could he say that I wasn't a true Cure fan? I don't know. I still have faith in them to put out another good record like disintegration. I've seen the Cure 6 times since 96. The whole Curiosa idea was by no means appealing to me. I don't want to see 10 other bands. I want to see The Cure and that's all. I still went to the show and the Cure performed well. But please, mix it up a bit.

I've been reading the setlist and it's always the same. I mean the setlist changes a bit from city to city, but has it really changed all that much from 1996? I bought my 80 dollar ticket during the presale last year. I'm ready to be blown away by a change of scenery.

(From: Rebekah V., USA)

"Inspiration"

I was 13 years old when i discovered The Cure in the summer of 1996. At the time I was listening to Britpop trite like Blur and cookie-cutter acts like The Prodigy, i was young and didn't know any better. But one morning I saw the video for Lovesong and I was stunned. The music was like nothing i had ever heard, poppy but with an extremely dark twist. The image of Robert Smith, with his teased out hair, black eyes and smeared red lips just blew me away. I knew straight away that this was a band worth investigating, so I went out and bought every Cure album that HMV had in stock and listened to them religously throughout the summer weeks. I even phoned my local radio station and told them it was my birthday just so they would play Friday I'm In Love!

I will never forget the experience of hearing the Disintegration album that first time in my bedroom at home. I felt the same as any Bowie-head felt the first time they heard Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars - elated, euphoric, emotional. I have never felt such a rush listening to an album before or since Disintegration. It is, in my opinion, the greatest album ever made. However, 1996 was not an ideal year in which to be a Cure fan. They had returned that year after a three year absence with an album called, Wild Mood Swings. This was an album that i liked (if not loved) very much, but it was mauled by the critics and sank without trace within two or three weeks of its release, rendering the band completely obsolete in their native England. You see, this was the year of Oasis, 60s-style guitar rock with a thuggish swagger. Good old-fashioned sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and idiotic phrases like "Mad For It!" were all the rage in both the UK and Ireland.

A young, Irish teenager, walking the streets of Cork in a Cure T-shirt and brandishing a doomed-out facial expression was bound to raise a few eyebrows! Cure fans delve a lot deeper than your average rock fan, the Cure's music influenced us to ponder about unattainable love and the harsh realities of life. Because of this i never stood much of a chance in school, i was always that "strange kid" in the corner.

If there was ever a moment when it seemed certain that the Cure belonged whole-heartedly to their legion of hardcore fans and completely seperate from the general, music-loving public, it was in June 1997, when they "headlined" a KROQ festival in Irvine, California "ahead" of both Oasis and Radiohead. Both the NME and the Melody Maker managed to review this one-off festival show and praised the Gallaghers and Radiohead to the hilt, whilst not even mentioning the headliner, what a bunch of snobs. As the years went on, the Cure drifted even further into obscurity, no longer an integral part of the music world, it was hard not to feel as if i had missed the boat so to speak. It was during this time that the band released what i believe was their last "great" album, 2000's Bloodflowers. It was the last CD that i remember listening to with that great sense of anticipation and almost tearful euphoria. Fast forward to the summer of 2004, i'm 21 years old, i have a full-time job where i have to abandon my black-clad wardrobe for the shirt and tie, i have grown, but I am still hurt and confused much the same way as during my adolesence. I still need my life soundtrack, i still need the Cure. Or so I thought.

That summer, I saw the Cure play live for the first time since falling for the band in '96. The venue was Ireland's very own "Oxegen Festival" in Co. Kildare. For the first time, i was literally surrounded by Cureheads, people in their late 30s and early 40s who had followed them since the early 1980s and of course, all those EMO kids that had found the band the previous year! Robert Smith and co. hit the stage late that night and what was supposed to be a vindication of my lonesome and often loathsome teenage years, ended up being nothing more than a routine festival appearance by a band that looked and sounded bored, worn-out and ultimately out of touch. When Hot Press reviewed the performance a week later and slated it, it was the first time I ever agreed with a bad Cure review.

I was bitterly disappointed upon leaving the venue that night in 2004, my love affair with the band was over. For the first time, i did not care for their next move, the next chapter in their story, i wasn't bothered. Funnily enough, in a complete turn-around of events, The Cure had found themselves back in fashion in 2004. Everyone wanted a piece of them from the NME to MTV who filmed an "Icon" show in their honour. They even released a self-titled album that year on which they sounded absolutely nothing like themselvles and sold 2 million. I was no longer their biggest supporter. To make matters worse, I ended up spending much of 2005 attending all those Cure fan conventions in the UK and parts of Europe, where i tried to rekindle my passion for the band, but to my horror, I found being in the company of hardcore Cureheads a tad overbearing. These guys, some of them in their early to mid-40s, still teasing out their hair and applying Smith's trademark smeared red lipstick, did my head in over the course of these trips.

It was hard not to get the impression that most of these guys were more into the band's image and the process of trying to outdo one another's look than an actual sincere love of the band's music. I did however form lasting friendships with much more laid-black and individual Cure fans that year, people that were and still are trying to be creative and make a name for themselves and not waking up everyday just to worship the band. With these charming new friends i would see the Cure perform three more times, Berlin and twice in London. By then, only nostalgia would draw me back each time.

To sum up, the Cure is not just a memory, lost in the confines of a long-gone adolesence, but a major part of my life growing up. Whenever I hear In Between Days, Lovesong or even lesser-known songs like 2 Late, i still know where i was and how i felt when i first heard them. No other band has had that kind of impact on my life. I am still deeply affected by their old music, but the difference now , is that their existance in 2008 and beyond matters very little to me. Quite naturally, i grew out of it all, i started to think for myself. What can i do? What can i create? Who can i touch with my music? Bands like the Cure don't exist just to be adored and worshipped by fans, they exist in order to inspire much younger people to create a niche of their own. Otherwise what was the point of this?

(From: Paul Jeremiah O' Connor, Cork, Ireland)

"This band spoke to me"

In 1988, a junior in High School, I was listening to some pretty terrible music. I lived in a small town about an hour outside of Las Vegas, with no record stores or radio stations, so Vegas was the only destination. I would listen to KLUC, a pop/top 40 station, enjoying whatever in the world was in the top 40 then. I don't care to remember- the only acts that really come to mind are Taylor Dayne and The Cover Girls. You get the idea.

I had a friend who was into "weird music." He's the first person I ever reached a different consciousness with, if you understand my meaning. We were out hanging around and messing about, and he gave me a couple cassette tapes to listen to. One was A Momentary Lapse Of Reason by Pink Floyd. The other was The Head On The Door by some band called The Cure. I never listened to Top 40 again. I'd heard the song Just Like Heaven on the radio from time to time and enjoyed it but never really thought anything of the group. I absolutely devoured The Head On The Door, especially Push, and this prompted me to explore their back catalog. I got into all the older albums, and it's like something just clicked: THIS was the band I was supposed to be listening to. This band spoke to me. Their lyrics explained my day to day life. I could believe there was something beyond the borders of this horrible little town I lived in. I could dream again.

Naturally, when 1989 rolled around, I got Disintegration on the day it came out and was lost. It was, honestly, the only thing I would listen to. My friends got tired of me talking about it. I became the absolutely biggest cure fan there was. And it's not like I dressed like Robert per se, with makeup and big hair. I was a pretty normal kid, wearing t-shirts and jeans. I did, of course, adopt Robert's look of baggy sweaters and high tops. I thought this was the coolest thing ever. I dressed like that until I was 25. Wish came around and things just continued. This tour was the first time I saw them live, at the Rose Bowl in 1992. I was blown away. I didn't think things could get any better than that. In some ways I was right, and in other ways I was very wrong. When Porl and Boris both left the group, I was crushed. Who was this Jason Cooper character? Why is Roger in the band again? Would Burn be the last great song?

Wild Mood Swings came out in 1996, and though I was into the album immediately, over time I started to think, "Hmmmm...this album is ok. There are some good songs, but wow, there are some terrible ones too. And the drumming's off, and..."But then the Swing Tour hit. The first time I'd seen them more than once, in multiple cities. The best night of my life (up to that point, at least) was in August of 1996 at the Irvine Meadows Ampitheatre. I'd driven out from Vegas with my friend Jennifer, and by some weird freak occurrence, we happened to meet a guy named Stymie who knew Daryl Bamonte. One call and we were on some sort of guest list, and after the show (an amazing show that ended with Faith) we strolled backstage and hung out with THE CURE!!! WOW!!! I talked with Simon for half an hour (coolest guy ever), spoke with Robert about music and laundry (private joke) and was basically in a dream world for two hours. What a night!Of course, time passes, people get older, tastes change. I met my wife in 1997 who immediately asked me, after coming to my apartment, "When are you going to take down these gloomy old Cure posters?"

The band went on hiatus, I discovered other music, and when Bloodflowers rolled around, I didn't even know it was coming out until I saw it at Tower Records. I of course bought it right away, and immediately knew something was wrong. Why was Robert's voice mixed so high? What happened to the lyrics? I saw them on that tour here in Los Angeles, but it was pretty forgettable. They didn't even play Pictures Of You. Right about that time, I discovered A Chain Of Flowers website and started keeping up to date on daily news, etc. Time passed again, and suddenly it was late 2003 and, apparently, the Cure were going to produce an album with...Ross Robinson? And then launch a festival-style tour? What was this?The less said about the 2004, self-titled album the better, as far as I'm concerned. Although there are some good ideas floating around and some decent pieces of music, it is, without a doubt, one of the absolutely worst produced, recorded and mixed albums I have ever heard. Wrong in every single way. I didn't bother seeing them at the Curiosa thing. What was the point?

Now, it's 2008. I've gotten all the re-issues (of course), and I've hunted down and downloaded all the unreleased stuff I could possibly find. I've read the forums on COF and waited patiently and impatiently along with everyone else for any and all news on the new album. I've listened to, and for the most part disliked, the live new songs that were released on Youtube. And I've pretty much lowered my expectations about as far as they can go. Is it because I'm older, and I've changed? Is it because Robert it still writing to some imaginary fan that he thinks only wants a particular type of thing? Is it because he's just lost it? Or is it a combination of all of those? I'm not sure, but I'm not really excited about whatever's going to come out. But I'm going to be at the record store buying it the day it comes out, because that's the kind of fan I am. I'm going to get whatever singles they release. I'm seeing them on May 31 at the Hollywood Bowl, and if I can get tickets to the Shrine, I will. But I won't buy any t-shirts or posters. I need money to eat!

(from: Scott Otto, Las Vegas, US)