Saturday, July 6, 2019

The Cure at Roskilde Festival

July 6th, 2019
Roskilde Festival in Denmark
Scheduled to start at 11 pm.
In the US that's a start time of 5 pm eastern, 4 central, 3 mountain, 2 pacific.
Livestream here (need a VPN if watching outside of Denmark).

Setlist: Shake Dog Shake, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Just One Kiss, Lovesong, Last Dance, Pictures of You, High, A Night Like This, Burn, Fascination Street, Never Enough, Push, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, Play For Today, A Forest, Primary, Want, 39, One Hundred Years

Encore: Lullaby, The Caterpillar, The Walk, Friday I'm in Love, Close to Me, Why Can't I Be You?, Boys Don't Cry.

Video: Full show from the livestream.

Posted by Craig at 2:00 PM

Great NME interview with Robert






















Read the whole thing at NME, but here's the part talking about the new album:

AMBITION IN THE BACK OF A BLACK CAR – THE “MERCILESS” NEW ALBUM

Tim Pope started teasing his new film about The Cure last year, by saying he was working on a special anniversary film containing archive footage alongside the band’s story narrated by Robert Smith. After they found that the format didn’t hold together, they decided to just focus on the London gig. The original idea has not been totally shelved, but won’t be revisited just yet.

“I hate people who write their autobiographies when they’re still alive,” says Smith. “I’d prefer it for them to write it when they’re dead! You know what I mean. They do one, then they go, ‘Here’s my autobiography part two’. I’m not going to do a history of The Cure from my perspective when we’re still going to do something new. What’s the point?”

The “something new” he’s talking about is, excitingly, an album. It’s been over a decade since new music from The Cure, but the wait should be over by the end of 2019. The act of searching for younger talent to play at his Meltdown residency last year left Smith “enthused by their enthusiasm” and it pushed him to create something new. And the band have been working on a huge batch of new songs. While 2008’s acclaimed ‘4:13 Dream’ and its self-titled 2004 predecessor felt very much like a stab at ‘classic Cure’, this new 14th album will see the band push down on the bruise that inspired their morbid ‘80s masterpieces ‘Pornography’ and ‘Disintegration’.

Smith once said he wanted the claustrophobic nihilism of ‘Pornography’ to sound and feel“virtually unbearable”, and it laid down the black runway for the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Placebo, Deftones, Muse and, arguably, Billie Eilish. It seems only right that The Cure should return to the shadowlands they opened up for so many. So when will the new album be ready?

“It’s changing. It is a work in progress,” says Smith. “We did three weeks in Rockfield Studios in Wales in the early part of the year to try and capture some genuine Welsh doom and gloom. It was sunny the entire time though, which was pretty disappointing. It only rained once in three weeks, which I think is a national record for Wales.”
Which version of the The Cure are we likely to hear on the record?

“We did about 17 songs and almost all of them were really downbeat and heavy. There were a handful of others, and I really shouldn’t say this because you’ll go ‘oh no’, but in my head I wanted to do two albums – one after another. One was gonna be upbeat and the other downbeat, but the upbeat one I’m not so sure about now.”
So you’ve settled on the idea of something quite miserable now?

“Although the concept of what it’s going to be hasn’t really changed, I may have to change some bits of it. It’s kind of pushed me back a little bit because I thought I’d be in the mixing stage by the time we’d finished the festivals, but in fact we’re going to go back and re-record about three or four songs around the time we go and play Glasgow in August. I feel intent on it being a 2019 release and would be extremely bitter if it isn’t. At some point I will have to say ‘this is it’, otherwise we’ll just keep recording like we have done in the past. It never gets any better. We’re due one more session then we’re done.”

It’s been 11 years since you released ‘4:13 Dream’. Do you feel like a different person now?

“I don’t think I’ve ever changed much particularly. The core of who I am remains the same. Just like everyone, I have good days and bad days. I think I’m generally more of a balanced individual than I was 10 years ago. I’ve experienced more of life’s darker side, for real.”
What impact has that had on the new songs?

“Before I used to write about stuff that I thought I understood. Now I know I understand it. The lyrics I’ve been writing for this album, for me personally, are more true. They’re more honest. That’s probably why the album itself is a little bit more doom and gloom. I feel I want to do something that expresses the darker side of what I’ve experienced over the last few years – but in a way that will engage people. Some of the albums like ‘Pornography’ and ‘Disintegration’ are kind of relentless. I levelled ‘Disintegration’ with some songs like ‘Lullaby’ and ‘Lovesong’, but I think this one is more like ‘Pornography’ because it hasn’t got any of those songs that lighten the mood at all.”
So you’re not looking for ‘a hit’?

“When it’s closer to its finished form, it’s all about whether I think it’s too much or whether we just go with it. If it does turn out like that I think it’s going to alienate any kind of pop audience we still have. I think fans for a certain type of music that The Cure make will love it. That’s the dichotomy of the paradox: they will love the fact that it’s merciless.”
Merciless and very, very long?

“I know eight songs that currently make up the album. In the band, there’s a certain discussion going on but I obviously realise that the option is to do another album. Roger thinks that this is the last album but I think that every album we do is the last Cure album. It may well be, but if there’s another bunch of good songs then there’s no reason not to follow it up. What do we do if we’ve got seven good songs leftover? Wherever it ends up, it will be an honest decision. There’s no record company involvement. It’s just us doing it. No one is pulling the strings.”
Posted by Craig at 1:46 PM

Tim will be at the Picturehouse Central screening in London on July 11th

Posted by Craig at 11:30 AM

'The Cure Anniversary 1978 - 2018' reviews & interviews


A collection of reviews for the films.

The Guardian (3/5)
Radio Times (4/5)
Critical Popcorn (5/5)
Paste 
Strangeways Radio
New City Film (9/10)
Herald Sun Australia (3.5/5)


Interviews with Tim Pope










Posted by Craig at 11:18 AM

Thursday, July 4, 2019

The Cure at Exit Festival

July 4th, 2019
Exit Festival in Serbia
Scheduled to play from 8:30 (started at 8:45) - 10:45 pm (stopped at 11:05).
In the US that's a start time of 2:30 pm eastern, 1:30 central, 12:30 mountain, 11:30 am pacific.

Livestream here and here (VPN needed)

Setlist: Plainsong, Pictures of You, High, A Night Like This, Just One Kiss, Lovesong, Last Dance, Burn, Fascination Street, Never Enough, Push, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Play For Today, A Forest, Primary, Shake Dog Shake, 39, Disintegration

Encore: Lullaby, The Caterpillar, The Walk, Doing the Unstuck, Friday I'm in Love, Close To Me, Why Can't I Be You?, Boys Don't Cry.

Reviews: NME
Posted by Craig at 11:31 AM

Signed Cure amp donated to charity, up for auction on July 13th


Posted by Craig at 11:25 AM

Tim Pope at The Cure Anniversary secret screening on July 3rd.





Posted by Craig at 11:20 AM

'Lullaby' from 'The Cure Anniversary 1978 - 2018 Live in Hyde Park London'

Posted by Craig at 11:15 AM

'Disintegration' 30th anniversary article in Q


Posted by Craig at 11:12 AM

Butcher Billy gives Robert, Siouxsie, Moz and more their own Archie comics covers

Posted by Craig at 11:10 AM

Monday, July 1, 2019

How Pornography brought The Cure to the brink


Ahead of their headline set on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, Ed Power looks back on how drugs, drink and the recording process turned goth-rock troupe into ‘a powder keg ready to explode'.

Summer 1982 was drawing to a fitful close when Robert Smith slid his guitar under the bed, scrubbed away the last of the mascara and packed his sleeping bag. The Cure frontman was about to step outside the door of his parent’s house in Crawley, West Sussex, and away from the goth-rock troupe he had led to unlikely success across the previous six years. He was heading into the blue yonder in a desperate attempt to silence the tumult in this head, the chaos that had come crashing down on his music career.

He didn’t tell anyone but he suspected that, after four albums and a lifetime of upheaval stuffed into half a decade, it might be the end for the band. As far as Smith was concerned, The Cure were over. And so here he was, a literally unhappy camper about to hit the road. “Everything seemed to be going wrong,” Smith would recall. “So I decided to go off for a few months. I took a tent and went around England.”

Read the article at The Independent.
Posted by Craig at 1:00 PM

BBC Radio 2 interview with Robert



Robert says the plan is still to have the new album out in the Autumn. Early - mid November. But still has to put vocals on 4-5 songs, do the mixing, etc.

Robert says he DID see the Foo Fighters' set at Hurricane Festival. Was blown away by them. One of the best festival bands he's seen.

More from from the Irish Examiner:

The Cure’s Robert Smith has said the band’s upcoming new album is “not going to be that enjoyable”.

The English rock group are working on their first studio album since 2008’s 4:13 Dream, and have previously teased that it is very dark.

The band are set to play Glastonbury on Sunday night, but Smith told Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2 they are more likely to play familiar music.

He said: “So rehearsing for the summer festivals we did spend a day running through new stuff and at the end of it we just looked at each other and said none of this going to work in a festival setting.

“I’ve learnt something over the last few years – if you want to have a good festival show you have to engage the crowd, they have to be on your side. You want them to love you.

“It’s not necessarily the case when you’re playing your own shows, you kind of challenge people a bit more but Glastonbury they have no idea who’s on until it’s announced so people buy the tickets as an event.

“We’re just a small part of the event and so the show, whatever form it takes, it will be songs that people know.”

Smith went on: “We played Hyde Park last year and it showed me that if you play the right songs in the right way you will get a crowd, however big it is, to go along with you and that’s really what I want when we step out on stage.

“I want the crowd to be part of the show, not for us to stand there and say ‘Here’s 10 minutes of doom and gloom, you’d better enjoy it.’

“The new album, in a funny way, it’s not going to be that enjoyable.

“I know I shouldn’t say that… it’s something, it’s a piece, we’ve tried and it just won’t work.

“We’ve tried to squeeze a couple of songs in. I can imagine the crowd just staring back at us when we’re playing it.”
Smith said he was not apprehensive ahead of the band’s set.

“I’ve never been nervous, just a funny thing with me,” he said.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me. That wire’s missing!

“But the rest of the band do get varying degrees almost paralysed with nerves as the show approaches. I’m always running around saying ‘Come on, enjoy it, you won’t get it back!’.”

- Press Association
Posted by Craig at 12:08 PM

Stuart from Mogwai talks about The Cure

Posted by Craig at 12:00 PM

Sunday, June 30, 2019

The Cure at Glastonbury

June 30th, 2019
Glastonbury Festival in England
Scheduled to play from 9:30 - 11:30 pm.
In the US that's a start time of 4:30 pm eastern, 3:30 central, 2:30 mountain, 1:30 pacific.

Setlist: Plainsong, Pictures of You, High, A Night Like This, Lovesong, Last Dance, Burn, Fascination Street, Never Enough, Push, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Play For Today, A Forest, Shake Dog Shake, Disintegration

Encore: Lullaby, The Caterpillar, The Walk, Friday I'm in Love, Close To Me, Why Can't I Be You?, Boys Don't Cry.

Audio: BBC Sounds

Video: BBC iPlayer (UK only) / Cure return to the Pyramid Stage / Burn

Photos: Bristol Post

Reviews: Louder Than War / The Independent / Birmingham Mail / NME / Evening Standard / The Guardian / The Telegraph / Staffordshire Live / The Times / Billboard / BBC News / The List / Financial Times 
















Posted by Craig at 12:36 PM
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