Plainsong, Shake Dog Shake, Fascination Street, Before 3, High, The End of the World, Lovesong, Just Like
Heaven, Jupiter Crash, Lullaby, alt.end, A Night Like This, Push, Inbetween Days, From the Edge of the Deep
Green Sea, Us or Them, Disintegration

Encore: M, Play For Today, A Forest.

(Thanks to Ingmar and Stef for help with the setlist)
 

Neuhausen ob Eck, Southside Festival, 10.10 pm: The Cure appear, the audience claps and screams, and Robert
is there, smiling shyly, taking it all in.
The first notes of the first song, Plainsong, and you’re lost in another world... Then it’s Shake Dog Shake, and
you find yourself screaming along with rage and anger.
I don’t know how they manage it, it’s just that every song they play, whichever mood it has, sounds convincing
and sincere, and lets you sing empathetically...
Apart from the above-mentioned songs, Just Like Heaven, Lullaby (with Robert miming the song!), A Night
Like This, From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea were the highlights of this concert (save the encore) for me...
And the three songs of the encore, tbe "fucking old" songs, as Robert said, they were simply fabulous!!! Play For
Today was just playfortoday-ish (oooooh oh oooohhhh – you know it), A Forest was the classical concert-end
(can you ever do anything wrong with SUCH a song?) but M.... it  was dreams coming true. It is at the moment
one of my favourite songs and I couldn’t believe to my ears as I heard the first notes!
I think there was just one song which didn’t work as it “should”, and that was Push. I couldn’t almost recognise it
at first, maybe it was all because of technical problems. I can’t say much of the new songs, since I still didn’t know
them (apart from TEOTW) and I am one of those who need quite a long time to “understand” and let in new
songs... anyway, TEOTW was VERY good played and sung and I think Before Three is also quite catchy and will
work very fine live with those  “ali-i-i-i-i-ve”/ “insi-i-i-i-ide” bits.

As regards the setlist, it was quite good, even though PERSONALLY I’d rather had something else than High
(and Fascination Street), for example some classics like Boys Don’t Cry, Close to Me or, on the “dark” side, One
Hundred Years or something else from Pornography...

All in all, a wonderful concert, better than I had expected, which means something. The band sounded very good
co-ordinated, and Robert was in excellent form, not only as singer: he just seemed relaxed and amused (and
amusing!). A stupid example: before leaving the stage (before the encore? or at the very end of the concert?
somebody help me) he said “Thank you very much” and he was leaving the stage, the hand-clapping became even
louder and he came back to the microphone to say thank you again...
Quoting a review of the 1986 Glastonbury Festival concert: “This Cure are sublime with such ridiculous ease”....

- Tullio
 
 

just got back, 7 hours of driving home, and get to work. i hope i can sleep tonight.

its the first time i was at the southside festival. its on an airport.the hives played before the cure. normally you
see on such festivals many people with cure t-shirts, and black dressed, but at southside this wasn´t so. most of
them were normally dressed, some asked who is the cure? ( young punks!!!) and some said, they want to here the
hits. i hoped the will start with lost, and i wanted to hear labyrinth, but as  suprise they started with plainsong.
jason and simon had "fun" about the  beginning of songs. robert made his walk on the stage and the crowd
screamed.
the next surprise was shake dog shake. the sound in the front was very  bad. but this was an p.a. thing averall the
whole festival. before 3 was the first highlight, very powerfull played. high was nice played, and after that the end
af the world was another  highlight. there is something i love on robert smith was his talks between the songs. he
just siad "hello", " thank you" and at the end "thak you, see you later this year". no word, like all the other
bands
"this is our new single" or " this is from our new album" after 3 days i promise, you cant hear this sentence
anymore. lovesong, what sould i say, i love this song, and this was the first  time i heard it live, wonderfull, the
crowd sung. just like heaven was the next step. wonderfull,the tendency was to cooks.but jupiter crash cooled it
down, i dont like this song. i hated it 1995, but i think it was no good to be played at this point. lullaby was
wonderfull, they had so much fun on stage, simon jumped,  robert played at the end a nice guitar solo, and acted
like an actor, just lovely.
alt.end was another highlight, i loved how the played the new songs live. a night like this, push and inbetween
days, the head on the door trilogy was also wonderfull, and they had so much fun on stage, and the fun was
in the crowd,
my personal highlight was from the edge of the deep grean sea. wonderfully played, nice solo ....a dream.
us or them was very powerfull played, loved that. disintegration was not so powerfull, as i used to know.

they went from the stage, came back an robert said something like" we  had to discus what encore we will play,
thats why it lasted so long" .
m was nice played, simon jumped. play for today is the reason why i have no voice today, you know that keyboard
line to sing along. and a forest  was the short version without the intro. i normally hate clapping hands at the end,
but this time it was sticking on. they smiled, and simon nearly killed his bass at the end, and they all smiled. they
were allowed to play 90 minutes, but i think they played 1 hour and 45 minutes. starting 10 minutes late at 22.10
and finishing at 23.55.
its a pitty, that they played no encore anymore, this was a fantastic concert.
after that, going back to the car, and driving home .......... now in work, i hope i can sleep soon....
but this concert was worth every minute !

- Drowning