The Cure
London Chelsea Bridge Adrenalin Village

BLIMEY! Here they are, playing at the launch party for their new LP,
wearing the big hair and lipstick into their 30's and looking for
all the world like it's still some kinda fun.
    Surely this wasn't meant to happen. Surely The Cure weren't 
supposed to make another album, weren't meant to be a 'career'.
Christ, they weren't even meant to outlive Goth. But here they are
nonethelesss and only the churlish would begrudge them one more turn
in the limelight. After all, back in teh dark days before britpop,
The Cure were sometimes the one blundering mess of bright 
neuroses in an era threatening to surrender its spirit to a drab
machine age.
    They don't mean a damn thing now of course. Maybethey never did. 
It always seemed a bit wierd when they were collecting Brit awards
and being feted by Jonathan King. When they _were_, briefly, the
mainstream. Certainly they were a miserable spectacle last time out,
slumbering through the set with tired, sweaty hits in big, cold
stadia. And tonight, refreshed, detoxed, nipped and tucked, whatever,
they look a great deal happier, playing to a crowd of a couple of
hundred. Centre stage and yet, in the grand scheme of things, once
more a daft diversion, a bunch of drunk drivers swerving through 
fashion and fads, colliding with this and that, picking up small
scapes of credibility on the paintwork. Nice touch coming on to
'Jesus Christ Superstar'. Suck that, Jarvis and Jacko.
	The show is ostensibly an MTV broadcast so we get the new 
LP just about in its entirety. 'Wild Mood Swings' is, of course,
a gross misnomer. there is nothing remotely wild, moody or even 
that swinging about the new Cure LP. It is just a goodish Cure album
where a jolly bunch of dark Smithy cliches are gleefullly reunited
with all their old mates. in other words, the usual dichotomy: a
mature diet of adolescent angst. And when they open with 'Want',
it's like a tousle headed ghost of 'Pornography' back to drag us 
ino that lovely pit of despair. _Tres_ scary. But after that,
unfortunately, they grow less and less believable by the song.
The dancey, teddy beary songs like 'Club America' suffer from the
inevitable lack of dignity that always befalls men self-conciously
playing pop for the kids. And the oh-misery-me ones like 'This is
a Lie' song sound like, well, a little like lies actually. Robert
Smiths life is, as far as we know, a pretty good one and this 
process of deliberately delivering himself back into misery just
so he can bring forth songs screaming into the world is growing a 
mite tired.
	When the album's done, we get what we've waited for-
karaoke Cure. "Boy's Don't Cry', 'Inbetween Days', 'Lullabye', 
'Friday I'm in Love', and we swing and sway around quite happily,
relieved to be with the real things rather than reminded of them 
by the new album's facsimilies.
	Love 'em and all that, but this really should be the
journeys end for the Cure. It's too cosy in there with the big
fluffly spiders and the echoing souls. Captain Bob should chart
new waters, dispense with the verse, do film music or something.
Discover some place for Gaz Coombes to follow.