"The Cure of my life"

My story begins in 1996, Madrid. I was 14 years old and my older brother had lots of CDs, most of them scattered around his room, full of scratches and without any kind of case. I was looking for something to listen to, tired of Gun's and Roses, Nirvana and other bands that teenagers used to listen to back then. I had started to listen to bands like The Pixies and The Smiths but my music tastes weren't really defined until I found a very ugly looking CD with The Cure on its label. The name of the CD was Standing on a Beach and I had no clue that the music inside of it was going to change my life forever. I remember listening to first tracks such as Boy's Don't Cry and Killing an Arab concentrating on the guitar parts, simple but perfect, trying to replicate them on my cheap guitar.

As I advanced through the record I couldn't believe what was coming through my ears, it was like the evolution of music from a one band perspective. From A Forest to The Lovecats, to In Between Days or Close to Me. I simply felt amazed of the simple but concise evolution of a band into the different sounds of the different years. Not too long after that, I was able to borrow another CD from the Cure. The music I had heard on Standing on a Beach had surprised me a lot, but anyway it was a studio album, just singles and even tough I didn't know it then I hadn't really heard the full potential of the band, a potential that you can only spot when you hear them LIVE.

So lucky for me, the next album I got to listen was Show. For about a year I almost only listened to that double CD. Tape, Open, High and Pictures of You, it was simply too much for me. Those four songs, specially the last one, Pictures of You have really gone far inside of me. Pictures of You simply changed my concept of music, the guitar and bass line are simply perfect, when I listen to it I feel like I'm lost in space, with the melancholy thoughts that the lyrics inspire. When I listen to that sound (which I still do very oftenly) my whole life comes as a thought. I remember old friends, old pictures, old situations and not so old ones. It is without any doubt the song of my life (so far) which has walked with me along the path of living.

After a while I reached the Disintegration album, I have to admit that I don't like the studio versions as much as I like the Live versions, but it was still a fantastic experience. So far I had only listened to the Standing on a Beach and the Show records, and I really didn't know if the Cure still had much to offer me besides, how naive. So I had the CD and I wanted to try it in one of the two ways that I like to listen to music (besides concerts of course). I waited until my family went to sleep and I lay on my bed with the headphones and nothing else. The "sound was deep, in the dark", deeper than I can ever remember. Plainsong just broke my heart, then the fantastic studio version of Pictures of You, and on and on until Untitled. Probably that was the most exciting experience so far for me of listening to a studio album for the first time. The band was too much for me, in a period of two years I was starting to become some kind of Cure-head.

I could listen to nothing else but those few CDs and I just wanted more. I didn't have much money as a teenager but I managed to buy Japanese Whispers which was on sale at Madrid-rock. I liked the CD, but after the experiences I have had with the other albums I guess that I was a little bit dissapointed, although after the years I have really enjoined that album many times after that. The mp3 era had come and someone gave me a CD simply with all of the Cures music. I was extremely happy that I was finally going to be able to listen to all of their music. I remember running back home, climbing up the stairs not waiting for the elevator, starting up the computer, really nervous. Will it work? Is this really the CD I've been looking for so long? It did, indeed it worked.

I was finally able to listen to Pornography, Faith, and all of the rest. It took me a few years to digest all of the albums, some more, some less. But by the time Bloodflowers came out, I was really an extremist Cure fan. The Dream Tour, Madrid, La Riviera, year 2000, 17th or March. I wasn't really sure of what to expect of my first Cure concert, I was nervous, excited and still a kid. I went with my best friend and my brother and his friends. Honestly I didn't care about the setlist, I knew for sure that I was going to enjoy it a lot, buy I have to admit that I really really really wanted them to play Pictures of You. I was really afraid that they wouldn't play it and that it could be the only chance of my life to see the band live, because of the rumors about the disintegration of the band after that tour. I was just 18 at that time, still a kid and I had only been to two concerts then.

I can clearly remember how it started: Out Of This World, which for sure was my favourite songs on Bloodflowers. It was simply a magical moment, from there on the concert went just the best way I could expect. And then it came, Pictures of You. When the song began I got totally paralyzed, watching Robert and Gallup face to face playing those perfect sets of notes, filling the air with the most beautiful sound there can be. I remember my brother calling my attention and saying: there you have it! But I guess I was too concentrated on the music to say anything. God that was really beautiful, one of those unique moments of your life that you know you will remember forever.

August 2nd, 2002 Benicassim Festival. That was my second Cure concert. I was disappointed that I was only going to be able to see the band for an hour, and I wanted more. I remember that that summer I wasn't going to go to the festival, instead I was going to fill up my geeky computer boy need by attending a Lan Party in Valencia. I already had the ticket of the Lan Campus Party but then the Line Up of the festival came out: The Cure!!! and Radiohead!! About three hours after that I cancelled my ticket for the Party in Valencia and I was buying the ticket for the Benicassim FiberFib Concert. As I was saying, it was a pity that The Cure were only going to play for about an hour, but you never know what's going to happen, and luckyly for me, Sigur Ros, another band that I was really excited to see, cancelled their tour, and the organization of the festival offered The Cure to play double time, and so they did :)

Again, the concert started with Out Of This World. I wasn't expecting to feel as sensitive with this concert as I had been with the one in Madrid two years ago, but something happened. I went to the concert with my girlfriend. Since we had meet she had started to listen to the Cure a lot, and it was already one of her favourite bands already. She expected a lot from the show. Before the band came out, a few minutes before the crowd started to clap and cheer them on. I could feel some kind of small shake around my hands. The shackle spread though my body, and by the time they started playing, I swear that I was totally shaking, I could even feel my teeth shaking, something that has never ever happened to me again. I was like a dream coming true, I was really about to see the band again. I just couldn't believe it. The concert went smooth as butter, with a very happy ending which I enjoined all the way. There, with such a big amount of people, it was like a dream coming true. Again, one of the best days of my life.

The next concert was the day of my birthday two years after that. Me and my girlfriend took a 12 hour train to get to Santiago de Compostela, a city in Galicia the north of Spain. 16th July 2004. Nothing much to say about that concert, besides that it was truly amazing. The sound, the temperature and atmosphere, everything was simply perfect. I could see the mountains far behind, the sunset, with cold breezes of air cooling me down. I really needed to take a leak at some point, but the toilets where so far away and there was such a big line that I didn't want to miss a single second of the concert, I had to hold onto it and trust me, I almost exploded at the end :). That was the last concert with a 5 man lineup that I got to see. The concert was slightly longer than 2 hours and it ended with Faith, long version. I remember a couple, a goth couple crying close to me and I understood that they were feeling what I had felt four years ago when I listened for the first time to Pictures of You. I had a very nice feeling of being around people who felt the same way as I did in that moment. It was also beautiful and sad at the same time.

August 5th, 2005, Benicassim Spain. I wasn't planning on going to the festival that year, but again The Cure were playing so I had no choice. It was my first concert with Porl back in the band, and it was really nice. The truth is that I wasn't as suprised as the older concerts, don't know if it was because I had already seen them 3 times, of because it was a 4-piece lineup. The concert was good and I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't as emotional as the previous ones. At least I got to hear songs like The Blood or Push live :)

2008. I was lucky enough to see the band twice in the last tour. Palacio de los Deportes Madrid and Rotterdam. Both shows were really nice but I must say that it is whole different experience to see the band as 4-piece than as a 5-piece. Although Porl is the best guitar player the Cure could ever have, I really miss Roger at the keyboards.

(From: Javier Quevedo Fernández, Madrid, Spain)

"The magical world of The Cure"

I properly got into the Cure around the 1990-1991 period when Mixed Up was released. I would've been about 13 years old and still at school. I was already aware of them from their famous hits like The Love Cats and more recently Lullaby (I knew that Lullaby was a striking song when it was released but the video scared me a little when it came out!). I also had a vague recollection of seeing The Cure's legendary Close To Me video on Top of the Pops when I was a kid and it had stuck in my mind. So even though I had not yet taken the plunge and bought any of their records, it was clear, looking back, that they had made an impression on me.

I think it was inevitable that I was going to get into them eventually and it happened to be when Mixed Up came out as they were getting a lot of exposure at the time on the music programmes I was watching. I had MTV then and two of The Cure's videos from that album, Close To Me (Closer Mix) and Never Enough were being shown regularly. I loved both songs and the accompanying videos, so my sister bought me the album for Christmas. I played it pretty much every day for a long period and it was from this that I became aware of some other classic Cure songs (albeit it radically different to the original versions, as I was later to discover). It was after hearing this album that I started to love Lullaby and also tracks like Pictures of You and The Caterpillar. Around this time my dad also bought me The Cure Picture Show video as a present which exposed me to other wondrous songs like Catch and Just Like Heaven. Hearing these songs and watching all the clips on this video really enthralled me and opened me up even further into the magical world of the Cure.

I found Robert Smith very endearing and funny and I started to copy his mannerisms and turns of phrase. When I got the Cure Play Out video a bit later it re-affirmed what a hilarious and likeable bunch of blokes the Cure of that period were. There was no turning back, I was a bona fide Curehead from here on in. But Mixed Up and the compilation videos were simply a taster (and at times a misleading one). I had no idea then what a vast, exciting and varied catalogue I was about to dive into. My record collection around 1990-1991 was relatively small and football was my main passion. The Cure though were the first band that I wanted to get look into and they had released so much, so profically that I was almost drooling at the mouth thinking about all the songs that I was yet to hear. I wanted more. They were the first band that made me realise that I loved/love music above anything else.

The first "proper" album I bought was Kiss Me... (because it had the most songs on it and also included two of my favourites in Catch and Just Like Heaven). At first, I found it quite hard going because many of the songs were not as accessible as the more mainstream Mixed Up. But I persevered and soon loved all the miriad styles it contained. It was so rich and exciting and created a exotic world that I could get lost in that was so far removed from the mundane and everyday. Robert's lyrics were also very dreamy and distinctive and struck a cord my imagination and what it was possible to write about.

Next I purchased Disintegration and was immediately gripped by its epic melancholy and beauty. Plainsong became my new favourite.After that I bought each of the albums in The Cure's back catalogue one by one. Listening to each one for the first time engendered a quite specific feeling or memory in me that was unique for each album. Each one was special in its own way and I still get the same feelings and memories when I listen to any of these records now.

Wish was the first LP that came out after I became a fan and so holds particular affection for me. I rushed out to the shop to buy it on the day it was released and I wasn't disappointed.The Cure has remained a big part of my life. I've seen them live several times, have bought everything they've released, and read everything about band and their history (ex band members etc). While I love many, many other diverse bands (my record collection contains 600+ albums), The Cure has always been there and is my undoubted favourite. In all honesty, the magic that I felt the day Wish came out or when I heard Catch or Plainsong for the first time has never really been fully recaptured in recent years. I've like large elements of all of The Cure's subsequent albums (from Wild Mood Swings onwards) but none of them have quite lived up to my hopes or experience listening to the earlier stuff. They have contained a few too many duff tracks, songs that sound like parodies of themselves and and also the occasional terrible lyrics. But while I have often questioned whether my love affair with The Cure has reached an end, the excitement re-ignites with the anticipation of each new album. And it's still there now as I wait for the new record to come out (hopefully) this year. I'm optimistic that with Porl Thompson back in the frame, I will at last have another Cure album up there with their very best.

(From: Matthew Beavis, Nottingham, England)

"Pictures of You"

I became a Cure fan because of a very tragic moment in my life, when I was a senior in High School I was in love with this girl and all she talked about was The Cure. So one day I asked her who The Cure were, she just smiled and said "a very great band". A year after we graduated I lost track of her so one day I decided to get a hold of her, it so happens her aol screen name was cure213.

So when I attempted to get hold of her I got no response, it turn out that she had passed away that night. She was killed by a drunk driver, so when I found out I was devistated. I was so mad that I never got a chance to tell her how I felt about her, the night after her funeral I decided to download a bunch of Cure songs to see what she loved about them so much. The first song I heard was Pictures Of You the song brought tears to my eyes, ever since that day I have been a huge Cure fan. Their music touches me and they sing to my soul.

(From: Bobby Vela, Texas, USA)