Plainsong, Shake Dog Shake, Labyrinth, Fascination Street, Before Three, From the Edge of the Deep Green
Sea, The End of the World, Lovesong, InBetween Days, Just Like Heaven, Pictures of You, Us or Them, alt.end,
A Strange Day, 100 Years, Never, The Promise

Encore: Play For Today, A Forest, Boys Don't Cry.

(Thanks to Davide and Manuel for the setlist)

I am just back from a great weekend in Manchester and have been reading the various reviews on your Tours
Page.   I would just like to say the following:
 
 - the performance by the band was very good, especially when compared with the poor sound quality at times form
some of the preceding acts (esp Elbow).  The boys looked happy though slightly disorientated by the set-up - i
don't mean overawed (as if) but vaguely confused, which probably prompted Robert's comment that Strange Day
was a very appropriate song to play.
 
 -  I think that the mixed audience for the night necessitated plenty of 'singles' being played, which i didn't mind
for a change with my last show being Trilogy in Berlin.  But i do think it tends to stop the band getting into their
performing stride in terms of what they most enjoy playing.  Add this to the short set duration and things did feel
a bit 'unfinished'.  On the short set time, i know that the Cure were down to come on at 2030 and play for 2 hours.
This was the longest set of the event - 30 mins more than Morrissey. Who knows why they only came on at 2100.
All must have known that the end time was set in stone.
 
 - I for one definitely went to see the new songs and was not disappointed.  Would have liked Anniversary instead
of Us or Them, but hey, i missed out (again!) on Push also....  But got SDS and all songs were well performed (with
the exception perhaps of FTEOTDGS, which seemed flat with quiet guitar.
 
 - the crowd was odd all weekend.  It comes from having a line-up that was in many ways an 80's indie-goth
festival, but which also attracted a lot of younger folk and general festival-goers.  Also people that were just there
for one band.  Real mix of old rockers and teens with their parents.  Also lots of trendy-types affiliated with Virgin,
of course.  Nothing wrong with that, but it does lead to mixed receptions!
 
 - Special mention must go to the Pixies and the their performance, but especially the crowd reaction.  I never
thought i would get to see them live and was stoked to be there, and this seemed to be a common feeling.  The
place absolutely rocked and i bounced at the front like a 16yr old (and am still aching like a 40 yr old today).  I
heard from Virgin sources that 6000 people left the venue when the Pixies finished, before the Sterophonics came
on.   And dare i say it - Mozza was very good too. Much bigger crowd for him on Sunday and he did charm the
socks off the place, knocking out a few Smiths tracks on top of his good new songs.  Special moment indeed to
hear 'Light that Never Goes Out.
 
- Rich
 
 

Yes i needed my cure injection, so manchester it was. The last time i saw the cure was at the Livid Festival, in
Brisbane, 2000 - and i really thought it might be the last time - i should learn never to trust robert -but he gets me
every time. It did an unusual thing, and bought the new album on the morning of the festival - and honed an
opinion during the drive up from southern latitudes. A new cure album for me is, like the rest of us, a pretty damn
important event, so it was with some trepidation that i combined my first listen to seeing them on the same day. I
think it payed off!

Plainsong  It was fantastic being so close up to robert, as he wandered around and greeted the punters. It makes
me think how powerful a smile is, as its all he has to do - you cant help but smile back! I wonder how long robert
has been doing this walk around at the start of plainsong - can we set a date to it (obviously circa 1989!). I
remember the 2000 versions of this song to be more memorable, but i think that was due to it not being totally
dark, and we missed the full power of the light show this early on. After this song, robert wandered over to get a
beer, only to launch into an alcoholic...

Labyrinth - this is such an odd song, so highly eastern influenced -reminds me of the snakepit. This sounded pretty
good live.

Shake dog shake - its always a great surprise to hear this. It has changed to become such a powerful song live.
Just like in 2000 - the power was there, though perhaps not so much as before (ditto light thing). Love the ending
with robert's 'sh-sh-shake' and the echo on his voice :)

Pictures of you - its a lovely song to be sure. But for me the singles i can pretty much do without live. As other
people are switching on, i light up a ciggie and think of australia. As it traditional, it went dark with all stage lights
off after bob sang 'the dark...', a bit delayed from the usual spot. Is that too techy?! Bobs guitar was not the old
Wish days 6 string bass - what a shame, i wonder where that guitar now lurks - i mean, if roberts not needing it
anymore, then perhaps...a loan?

Fascination st - good strong lights for this. Plenty of foggy atmosphere was developing around the stage. Robert
didnt get the usual big clap for his tricky little arpeggio :)

From the edge of the deep green sea - the start of this song sounded quite different, almost in a different key
(maybe on simons bass?). Also, you could barely hear perrys lead in this - no one on stage seemed to notice this,
but to me it seemed blaringly obvious. It really needs that lead. It did kick in during the solo, a bit. As far as i
could gather, the solo bit by perry was same old same old. I miss the days of porl playing lead, i really do. I know
robert defends perry (of course he does) and perry is obviously technically very competent, but he does not have
the magic of porl. In fact, a porl look-a-like in front of me needed to get up there and take over the house!
Everyone did the 'hands in the air thing' - oh we are so predictable, arent we? Me too. The song has really
survived the live set - i remember in wish days robert saying this was his favourite song - in a similar vein to the
promise now - both songs really stand out.

Before three - This was quite fun. The singing, like a lot in the new album, reminds me so much of The Top.

The end of the world - The moogs are not as prominent as they were on jonathon ross, and about the same as the
album - a shame. The guitar sound in this song, and the way that robert sings the same notes as the guitar notes
reminds me of a great northern england band called the wedding present. Thats a good thing.

In-between days - the crowd loved this. See 'Plainsong' comment re burning dried leaf products. First sign of
moshing here, force 5. At the end, robert did the usual ha ha haaah, pointing down. Again, i wonder when that
first kicked off - was he trying to indicate 'get my voice down in the mix' - and it kinda stuck? I think there's a
thesis in this.

Just like heaven - ditto. Sounded good.

Us or them -  This is a fantastic song, again bob really got into it. It sounded like the 'fucking' bit was toned down
a bit? Or perhaps the mix was odd here. Short but very good.

Lovesong - always nice to hear. No obvious a minor shape chord this time from robert on his new schecter thing,
though typical up the neck chord progression through the chorus. Lots of crowd singing :)

Alt.end - love this song, quite a different sort of poppy song. The guitar line reminds me of in your house. This
song sums up what is good about the new album - different, and memorable. It strikes you. Sounded pretty good
live, but room for improvement lads :)

100 years - love the lights for this - all red and white. Good version, but personally i can always do without this -
its never been a fave. I know thats heresy, and maybe hypocritical too as i like the different stuff more than the
singles etc. Oh well.

The promise - fantastic. As good live. As the smoke and blue lights were billowing, and the cure playing out into
the night, i really appreciated the power of the cure - a bit like this kiss in sydney 2000. Wow! This song has the
same sort of orgasmic tendencies as not only the kiss, but wish versions of A Forest. I always needed a jumper on
after that song. In fact im listening to the promise right now, and still i am tingling. It Used To Be Me also springs
to mind. I could not see the wah-wah, but assumed that robert was standing on one! He did appear, from one shot,
to have a huge array of pedals to choose from. Guess he has the dinero ahora. I love the way robert hits his guitar
angrily during bits like 'time will heal'. Nice touch smithy. At the end robert was the only one left on stage - and he
was singing into the microphone, strumming his guitar whilst holding it almost vertical, lost in himself. What a
moment. But you know, i think robert is maturing. In the old days he would leave the stage with as much feedback
as possible burning our ears - think end of 'end'. But tonight he walked over to simon's bass, and killed the guitar
to stop this feedback - he did this at the end of boys dont cry too - nice touch though, i think he was thinking of the
neigbours. :)

Encore

A strange day - robert said this song is very appropriate. What was so strange about it - was it the lack of rain?

Play for today - I noticed robert doing his harmonics, a-la live in Orange style - I find it so hard to do the 5th fret
ones - full marks to bob for pulling it off for all these years. Quite a good crowd 'ah ahhhh ah ahhhh'. :)

A forest - some nice guitar work, but this song has now been castrated - after the wish forests, one can only be but
slightly dissapointed! Nice flanging. Come to think of it though, perhaps it is good they have pulled it back, as we
would only be complaining that 'its not as good as the wish versions' anyway.

Boys dont cry - that was the last song. Roger loved getting his tamboring out for this! Quite a bit of banter
between robert and roger as usual :) Robert said that they will would love to play more, but they would probably
pull the plug on them. He moved around stage at end, saying goodbye to everyone.

Overall I enjoyed this gig. And although I certainly won't pull it apart like this BBC reviewer apparently did,  I did
think it suffered from lack of time, and also lack of darkness. Perhaps as i was so close to the stage, maybe i
missed the general view of the light show? The order of the songs was very different to anything i've seen before.
I mean, what is deep green sea doing in there so early?! But no, thats a good thing to mix it up like that.

The crowd were certainly into it. I met a couple of guys who had flown all the way from venezuela for this gig -
which made me think my 3 hour drive north was not even trying hard enough for the cure. Hello if you remember
an aussie guy who built an IYH sign made of blue high intensity LEDs to get them to play in your house at Livid.
It didnt work :(   The band seemed to be having a great time up there. Well robert and roger anyway. Simon and
perry appear to be concentrating so hard, as does jason. Fair enough. There wasnt a lot of talking between songs
from robert - usually he would say a few more words. Simon had a beret on - to cover his mohawk?! Simon has that
Peter Hook authoritive presence on stage. Robert was wearing usual black clothes, his dacks seemed to be cargo
pants, with zipped sections. But i will stop there before i get too gossip colummny. Robert was really getting into
the the songs - he seemed to feel what he was singing - and i loved the close up shots of him with his eyes closed -
that look has not changed since the Paris cover!

Guitars-wise, robert's black 12 string didnt look like the one from Show, and it had (quite unsightly!) plastic tape
to deaden feedback (?). Robert's main electric guitar is quite an evil dark brown / black odd shaped guitar. There
is a white version of this too, that was dragged out for shake dog shake. The sound of these new guitars must suit
the new gutsy guitar sound they have.

Anyway, its great to have seen such a strong though short performance from the cure. I am now really looking
forward to a 'proper good' gig of circa 3 hours, in some darkened venue sometime soon. Who knows, they may
even, four years after expensively requesting it, play in your house :)

- Boydus
 
 

Having read the Chris Long review of the Move gig on the BBC website. I have just two things to say: Either he
wasn't at the gig or he was under the bizarre impression that this was some kind of nostalgia / comeback gig for
The Cure - in the same vain as Madness and Morrisey. Like many of the current crop of main stream music
journalists he was probably unaware that The Cure have never really been away. To be honest it was probably
not the bands best outing that I've seen, but then again for a Cure set it was quite short. As a result, and despite
a reasonably eclectic set list, somebody was bound to be disappointed. So, if Chris Long turned up expecting to
witness some kind of comeback greatest hits set, complete with Love Cats, he was way off.

- Colin
 
 

Ok, clearly someone at BBC was sent a job he/she was not quite keen to do.

First of all, the pressure thing ... Robert joked and smiled with the others throughout several songs, seemed quite
relaxed during the Plainsong walk smiling at the crowd, he improvised some sort of lap movement (!) in front of
Roger during Fascination St, laughed with Simon during the intro of Pictures of you, smiled and made his faces
throughout the middle of the set and banged his head when he forgot the lyrics of a song. All in all, after 25 years
I really doubt a festival late afternoon gig can intimidate the Cure.

In addition to that, as I said yesterday, the crowd seemed to participate quite intensely. Then, of course, if one
expects people to dance during songs such as 100 years then why bother at all? In fact, remembering
embarassingly cold crowds in the UK in the past (Swing tour), I was quite surprised by the warm reaction yesterday
night. People knew TEOTW quite well, which shocked me as I didn't have the impression it has been played that
much on the radio. And the "unsatisfied crowd" (sic) who has been singing the keyboard parts of Play for today
(a-la Paris) has kept on calling the band out  after the short encore ...but maybe the reporter at that point was just
bothered by the cold wind.

"Hands started to be raised and throats started to open" well before the mid set. Here the question goes back to
the point that people are paid to refer about music and they start moaning about Robert's persona. And to be fair,
the media coverage of this concert has not even been that good here, as the local press has seriously thought that
the Move festival was Morrissey's party back home.  I guess there is no cure for that.

- Davide
 
 

I think that the reviewer of the BBC article must have attended a different concert to the one that I was at last
night. After sitting through uninspiring performances by Longview and Elbow (Keane were good and actually
entertained the crowd) the Cure arrived on the stage to a fantastic version of Plainsong.

I've attended the last four Cure gigs in the UK and I've never seen a crowd as responsive and as knowledgeable
as the one last night. The crowded roared as the second song Shake Dog Shake came on. The reviewer's
comments that "the band droned on under the misconception that people had come to hear the new album" are
totally misplaced - a lot of people in the crowd were there to be the first to see the new song (of which only 7 out of
20 songs performed were played).

If the reviewer's knowledge of The Cure is only limited to the singles then perhaps he was at the wrong gig last
night - The Cure's best songs are the album tracks that aren't singles - From the edge of the deep green sea,
Plainsong, Shake Dog Shake, A Strange Day, 100 Years and The Promise (in which nearly everyone in the crowd
were awestruck by the incredible playing by the whole band). Out of the last 4 gigs I've been to by The Cure, this
ranks as the best one and the only disappoinment that the review is talking about is the feeling that the crowd
were cheated that The Cure only got 1 hour and 45 to play their songs.

- Steven Kilcline
 
 

Great gig. The Cure entered the stage to rapturous screams and applause before launching into Plainsong with a
real passion for the performance.  Robert relished his ‘walkabout’, laughing with the members of the crowd
fortunate enough to fall under his glance.  They followed Plainsong (to further screams of approval) with Shake
Dog Shake, which was a surprise but a very welcome one.  Seven great songs from the new album were played,
out of a set of 20, so it gave a good mix of old and new, with a performance of The Promise that rocked the
stadium, with the bass resonating across the crowds and Robert visibly loving every minute of the screaming
guitar pieces.  From where we stood the crowd's frenzied excitement increased with each and every track until the
fabulous Boys Don't Cry ended a superb gig.  A couple of mistakes were made on the ‘Us or Them’ vocals, and
the mixing was a little below par a couple of times –  notably Robert’s voice on Labyrinth, (but then it is a new
song so this can be excused), but this did nothing to detract from this performance and it was wonderful to see the
whole band really enjoying themselves and joking together on stage. The only down side was that the ridiculous
curfew ended it all far too early, and judging by the chants of "We want more" that continued as the stage crew
moved on - the rest of the audience felt the same.

Moments to remember :

Perry managing to break a guitar string during some enthusiastic strumming on Play for Today.

Robert doing a funky finish at the end of Never – sticking a “Yeah” on the end with a mischievous grin.

Roger’s memorable tambourine flourish at the end of Boys Don’t Cry.

The spine-tingling drums and guitar on The Promise.

- Caroline and Stev Kilcline
 
 

Tonight the cure played a crowd pleasing set from start to finish, they appeared quite energetic, maybe because
they hadn't played since last weekend or maybe because it was getting so cold

The crowd were most animated during "in between days", "just like heaven", and the final song "boys don't cry",
after which robert said "there's a 10.30 curfew so we can't play anymore". he had earlier apologised for not being
able to play for another hour but promised that they would do so next time

My favourites on this performance were "pictures of you", "a strange day" and "us or them" although during
"us or them" some of the vocal during the first chorus seemed to be missing, it looked/sounded like it wasn't
actually sung but it may just have been a technical problem?

Dissappointed not to hear "lost", "going nowhere" or "anniversary" from the new album but we're looking
forward to the full tour for those

Jason's drum sound was the best i'd heard him play live and i'm not usually a fan of his drum sound, simon's bass
was also quite prominent throughout, perry broke a string on one of the later songs but didn't stop playing
(swapped guitars at the end of the song) and roger's keyboard sound was good, he finished by shaking his
tambourine in front of roberts microphone right at the end after "boys don't cry", robert was his usual self although
his voice seemed to struggle a bit on some of the more strenuous vocals

Overall a good show, can't wait for next time

- Duncan and Lindsay
 
 

Well what a treat we had last night !!!

the wait was worth while as when the Cure did the thing we love so much took off it did so in style

Roberts voice was on top form apart from when he forgot the words to us or them !! Banging his head with his fist
and laughing to himself leting know that he knew what he had done

I had prayed all week for them to play shake dog shake and they played it at their best to date, completely ripping
Manchetser apart

All the songs that die hard wanted were there - pure pleasure is what we wanted and it's just what we got

Whoever got roberts plectrum was a lucky person indeed but I managed to get my hands on Rogers playlist
which is all screwed up but I will NEVER let it go

Thanks guys you truely rocked our world.

- Dale
 
 

The concert was very good, the guys seemed to have a god time onstage, and the crowd seemed quite responsive,
although to some extent this was more evident during hits such as those played in the middle of the setlist. Robert
did not say too much during the songs just "it's frustrating that we cannot go on for another hour" at the
beginning of the encore and at the end he cheered us with a "see you later in the year". Overall, the new songs
seem to have settled quite well, athough Us or them and Never were a bit  chaotic as some points. Shake Dog
Shake was a nice surprise, too bad I could not hear Lost live as this  will be my only concert, at least for the
summer. The Promise is just awesome, I could feel Simon's basslines all over my body. They seem to have gone
back to the standard festival setlist, with ample space to the hits, which is logical after all considering the album
they are promoting.

- Davide