Monday, June 4, 2012

Van Gosse on The Cure's first US tour

From Van Gosse: "Way back, when I started writing about music (thanks to Davitt Sigerson), I interviewed lots of people and occasionally taped shows, so I could listen to them again.   So....in April 1980, Melody Maker gave me a big assignment to trail The Cure on their first US tour, and write about them.  Their publicist, Rhonda, took me to their US debut, at Emerald City in Cherry Hill, NJ, and I taped the attached.   Pretty great stuff!  They were releasing "A Forest," but still played all the original stuff, including "Killing an Arab" as the encore.  The MM went on strike and my piece never ran, but it was a good time.  I remember what a hard case was Robert Smith, very determined, nothing sentimental or artsy about him. Below are my two pieces that did run, in the Voice and a short live review in the MM.  And the show itself, thanks to SFJ for compressing and cleaning up." (Thanks Anna)

Note: Some are getting a Malware warning when trying to download this. I downloaded it, didn't get any warnings, and it scans clean for me, but use extreme caution.
If you don't want to chance it, though it honestly seems safe, just listen to it at Slicing Up Eyeballs.

In case you don't get it, this is a newly discovered tape of The Cure's very 1st show in the US - The Cherry Hill, NJ show on April 10th, 1980!

So the very first US Cure setlist was Seventeen Seconds, Play For Today, Three Imaginary Boys, Fire In Cairo, Grinding Halt, In Your House, Subway Song, M, 10:15 Saturday Night, Accuracy, At Night, Boys Don't Cry, Jumping Someone Else's Train, Another Journey By Train, A Forest. Encore: Secrets, Killing An Arab. But the tape ends there, so we don't know if there was more.
Update (6/5/12): According to the actual stage setlist posted at A Foolish Arrangement, this recording is complete.
(Thanks to Andreas @ the excellent Cure Concerts Guide for the info)

Update (6/6/12): Need More Cure 1980 shows to download? Try here & here. (Thanks )

22 comments:

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    1. Simply amazing! After all of these years, it just turns up like this. Wow!

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    2. what a wonderful year for cure fans. all these treats! :)

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    3. and i loved that transition from jumping someone else's train to another journey by train!

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    4. All the bootlegs I've heard from this time period have this great "train/train" medley ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmROooJA7cE )

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  2. Wow!! I wish we could get a higher quality torrent of this. But beggars can't be choosers!

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  3. Replies
    1. Anyone else getting this? I get no warnings and it scans clean for me.

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    2. I get the same. My anti-virus don't let me download it. :(

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  4. Very cool. As soon as my bandwidth limit is renewed, since I've reached my monthly allowance, I'll download it. Thanks, Van Gosse!

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  6. yeah smart screen filter labels it as malware after scanning.

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    1. But... it's ok to download it?

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    2. i use a mac. it downloaded fine for me and i've had no problems.

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    3. Thanks Sofia. Think I'll have to wait a few weeks before I return home and can use my Mac. Right now I just have a PC and it's the only computer around for the next few weeks for me.

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  7. I just downloaded this, but I'm not going to extract anything until someone confirms that nothing in here is malware.

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  8. Is it both files or just the show?

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  9. It is a .zip file containing two .mp3 files. I have no idea why a PC would think it is malware. My Mac had no issues. It's the entire show (though the Killing an Arab encore is cut off a bit early) divided up into two tracks.

    It is amazing. Just hearing Robert say "This is our first time in America" is unreal.

    I also downloaded the .docx microsoft word file and read his review of the show. Good read.

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  10. I scanned it with a very high security corporate-level software (here at work) and both the doc and the music download passed just fine.

    Van Gosse, thank you for this genuine Cure treasure. I loved reading the reviews also. Thank you so much for sharing, and I look forward to any other recordings you may choose to share! :D

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  11. I downloaded a few things yesterday along with this file. So, I'm not sure what actually caused my virus protection to start going off. But, I went ahead and deleted this from my computer. I did get to listen to some of it and it sounded great.

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