The Cure

Kylie and I went along to Rod Laver last night to see The Cure. I will admit to some bias, being a very long-term fan, but they were frickin' awesome. Stripped back to a four-piece after brief flirtations with five- and six-member lineups, they rocked.

The last time I saw them was way back in 1992, again at Rod Laver (then, of course, the Flinders Park Tennis Centre . . .  ah, nostalgia). I had an oddish moment last night when their opening number was the same one they played way back then. (Side note: the song in question is the appropriately titled Open. Natch.)
 
In their three-hour set (featuring three encores) they did at least one track from each of their albums, with the exceptions of 2000's Bloodflowers and oddly, 1980's Seventeen Seconds. Their signature tune from that album, A Forest, is a common show closer and notable for its absence.

Having recently dropped their keyboardist Roger, the songs tended to be drawn from the relatively-obscure-but-hey-awesome-guitar-riff bucket, like Push from 1985's The Head on the Door and If Only Tonight We Could Sleep from 1987's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

For the keyboard-heavy songs that couldn't be avoided, like Inbetween Days and Lullaby, the keyboard riffs were played on guitar. It mostly worked, but results varied. I found it a little irritating because their guitarist Porl has played keys for them before, so they could have arranged some of the songs differently.

Still, that's a small price to pay. The lack of keyboard meant the set generally concentrated on their earlier material, back when they were a guitar-bass-drums three-piece. In fact, the last encore was entirely devoted to their very earliest songs: 10:15 Saturday Night, Jumping Someone Else's Train, and finished with the venerable Killing an Arab. Talk about retrospective.

The crowd consisted mostly of thirtysomethings who probably would have had makeup and teased hair back in the day, but not so much now. Shame. Still, black was de rigeur and I did see one "Goonies" t-shirt. Which was nice.