European Summer Festival Tour 2005


Sept. 3rd, 2005 - Istanbul, Turkey (Rock'n Coke Festival)

Open, Fascination Street, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, alt.end, The Blood, The End of the World, Inbetween Days, Shake Dog Shake, Us or Them, A Night Like This, Push, Friday I'm in Love, Just Like Heaven, A Letter to Elise, Lullaby, Never Enough, Signal to Noise, The Baby Screams, One Hundred Years, Shiver and Shake, End

1st encore: At Night, M, Play For Today, A Forest
2nd encore: If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, The Kiss
3rd encore: Hot Hot Hot!!!, Let's Go to Bed, Why Can't I Be You?
4th encore: Three Imaginary Boys, Grinding Halt, Boys Don't Cry, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing an Arab
5th encore: Faith

Show was 3 hours and 4 minutes

(Thanks to Olivier for the setlist)

Photos

COF - Eddie 1 - Eddie 2


(Two day pass - Thanks Olivier)


(Front of stage ticket - Thanks Olivier)

Reviews


The Cure in Istanbul (3.09/05): Russian invasion

          I still can’t believe it…. I dreamed to see the Cure live desperately and my dream came true!!! I was afraid to fly to Istanbul, I didn’t want to be dissappointed… But I got even more than I expected!!!
          It all began a year ago, when I joined CloseToCure – Russian Official Cure Fan Club… We meet every Friday to discuss news and talk about everything, not just the Cure… When we learned – “Robert and Co. will play in Turkey!”, we decided to go to the Rock’n’Coke festival to see them. On the 2nd of September our modest delegation – 37 (!) in number – from Moscow, Petersburgh, Samara and Kaliningrad took the plane to Istanbul...
          We got there at 11:30 AM, left our suitecases in the hotel and went sightseeing. We had the time of our lives, especially in the fish restaurant, where we danced and sang  along to “Play for Today” and “A Forest” (the owner let us play our compilation cd out loud). We returned to the hotel very late at night and made a home-party on the roof, so in the morning all Istanbul people knew about crazy russian fans ;)
           The very next day the bus took us to the festival. We arrived there well prepared, having two big banners – russian flags with enormous legend “WE WANT THE CURE IN RUSSIA!”. In the queue we sang, put on bright make up and shaked shands with every stranger in cure t-shirt, while one of our friends, poor Pasha, who in red lipstick, black eyeliner, mascara and with hair all stood up looks very like Robert Smith, was beating off young turkish fans. He tried to explain them he was a fan, not Robert, but the girls didn’t believe him!!!
           When KORN got on stage, we were sitting on the grass near the crowd… I had a little flag with me, so I wrote “Russia is still waiting” on it… Well, we were singing our eternal version of “Play for Today”, when – suddenly – appeared  the Turkish Television and started to ask questions!!! We told them about our fan club and our passion for the Cure… Later we learned that this interview was shown in the evening news!!! At KORN’s encores we wedged ourselves in the crowd. I was standing in the 2nd row all the show – thank you, Zeyna! ;)))
            The concert itself… In one word: EXELLENT!!! I heard all the songs I wanted to hear, even those I was dying to see live, but didn’t expect to – At Night, The Blood, Faith… The Cure were powerful and furious, they played every song as if it was for the last time, Robert sang as good as he rarely did before – yes, he took a sip of Miller often, but his voice sounded perfect: very clear and beautiful… Simon jumped like a jumping jack, Porl and Jason seemed out of this world – they were into their music and didn’t pay attention to anything else! The set was just like heaven, increasing emotion with every minute, - “Signal To Noise” and “The End of the World” became an annoying exeption. I adore these songs, I wanted to hear them, but in this set they were absoltely unnecessary, like flies in the ointment… (Sorry!)
            Anyway, the whole concert was wonderful!!! I sang along to all the songs (I lost my voice in the middle of “the Kiss”) and now know for sure 2 things: 1) the Cure live are the best band in the world, 2) Robert and Simon saw our flags (Robert even smiled) and heard our screaming – that’s why they did “Play for Today”… But I’m afraid Robert might think he was in Russia already – the only flag he could see was our three-colour…
            The Cure played three hours!!! Five encores!!! Oh, my god!!! What I’ll remember forever… The second mike on “Let’s Go To Bed” and pazzled expression on the face “Someone, make it work, I want to walk along!”, power and glory of “Open” and “Fascination Street”, the fury of “Shake Dog Shake” and “Us or Them” (“And the way it always ends is Me! Me! Me!), the last line of “End” in silence (“I’m not of these… things!”), Never Enough, Killing An Arab, my favourite “Alt.end” and “The Baby Screams”, improvisation in “Faith” (“There’s nothing left!”) and tears in Robert’s eyes…

- D-Flower


The Istanbul show was, to sum it up with one word, excellent! The Cure took stage right after Korn (they were also great and held the crowds attention despite the rain), and we got the expected playlist; with the first chords of Open I was already in heaven. The crowd was OK, though there were the usual annoying fans who kept on screaming for lovesong – I mean there is nothing wrong with the pop songs but come on, these guys are playing tons of songs, so wha if they didn’t play lovesong?? It was wonderful to listen to songs like baby screams and shiver and shake.
And the encores kept on coming! Id been hoping for the kiss encore and was very satisfied with it. But I guess the pop encore with lets go to bed and why cant I be you was also great – with Robert walking to the front of the stage and dancing his weird dance – the crowd got really wild by then.
So the show was wonderful (much better than the Rock Werchter show in 2000, the other Cure performance Id seen, if comparison is necessary), and a dream come true for thousands of cure fans who had been dying to see them live just once. I hope we’ll have them here again in the future.

- Ufuk


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