It took three hours for Robert Smith and crew to finish, but they did prove
to Chicago Saturday night at the Rosemont Horizon that even after 19 years of
the same schtick the Cure can still satisfy.

Touring in support of their latest disc "Wild Mood Swings," the band played
about every song in the repertoire that any fan cared to hear.

The band's latest lineup--Smith singing and splitting guitar work with former
Cure roadie Perry Bamonte, Simon Gallup on bass, Roger O'Donnell on keyboards
and Jason Cooper on drums--showed their rough edges in the first few numbers,
notably so on "Fascination Street" off of the "Disintegration" CD, during
which the band seemed completely out of each other's groove until the first
chorus.

They bounced back within moments though, with "Mint Car" from their latest, a
song that fully embodies the "Friday I'm In Love" school-girl-in-sweat-socks
slumber party dancing in secure suburbia spirit that brings so many to the
Cure. Soon into their set, they played the the latter two tunes, too.

Besides, those few peccadillos were like the mere bumps of post-suicidal
slashed wrist scars on an otherwise smooth inner forearm. Isn't that what the
Cure is about anyway? Anthems of optimism for the disenfranchised? Songs that
belong best in the hearts of the ostracized and insecure?

Smith played and sang happily, still with the look of a little boy caught
with smeared lipstick and teased hair before mommy's make-up mirror, but
Saturday wearing dark jeans, sneakers and a Bulls warm-up jersey instead of a
velvet dress.

Gallup made up for his lack of transvestism in a black dress and red
stockings, while on Smith's right hand stood O'Donnell looking early '80s or
Tolkien-brand elfin.

Through the smoke machine discharge and moldy-looking and very much Gothic
stage trappings, the band's music rang loud. It was an interesting stage set,
one punctuated with stalactical spotlights and suitably cobwebbed, cavernous
and decidedly ghastly to match Smith's psyche and music.

Smith's voice, choked with well-rehearsed emotion, maintained its power
throughout the show. "Lullaby," a gloomy tune from "Disintegration," was a
perfect showcase for his thick, half-octave ranged pipes.

Of course, the band was at its most entertaining playing the peppy,
balls-of-the-feet dance numbers that propelled its record sales into the
millions.

The fleshy bass and xylophonic descending guitar intro of "Just Like Heaven"
brought deafening screams, as did the sampled horn section swing of "Why
Can't I Be You" much later in the set.

Even after nearly 20 years on the road and after 16 albums in the United
States, the Cure is far from geezer rock.

Despite rumors of a surprise opening set by Souxie and the Banshees, there
was no opening act.