Yesterday, I went to the Zillo Festival. I arrived there at about 1:00 p.m., although I went there to only see The Cure. So, there were a lot of hours to kill as The Cure’s performance was set to start at 10:30 p.m.

But that time helped me to get into the special atmosphere of this gothic festival. Many of the bands playing there come from the EBM and gothic scene. I saw a lot of Goths, many white painted faces and nearly everyone was dressed in black. Some were even wearing clothes of the 17th century! Very beautiful ! It was also great to see so many people wearing Cure-shirts.

The time went slowly by and I got more and more impatient. At 10 p.m. I tried to get as close to the stage as I could. The 10th row was the best I could reach to that point of time. So, I waited there in immense anticipation. And so did all the fans around me. We all stood so close together, we were pressed like a sandwich. The crowd began to shake and it was tough not to fall down to the ground. Suddenly the lights went out and everyone screamed and threw his arms in the air.

The Cure went on stage and immediately opened the show with Shake Dog Shake. Just another show ? No, absolutely not! One could already realise that during the first two tracks („Fascination Street" was the second song). The audience was brilliant and The Cure were in very good shape and mood. What should one say about Simon ?! He was simply perfect, as always. Some fans even shouted „Simon, Simon,..."!

And Robert ? He was brilliant, marvellous, extraordinary. He was at his best !! Very emotional, indescribable! He put so much feeling into all these dark and sombre songs. His aura cannot be described with words. He looked so weak, helpless and lost !

"One hundred years" was amazing, Cold and Sinking were very sad. In "Sinking", Robert repeated the lines: "The secrets I hide Twist me inside They make me weaker" at the end of the song. Then came the guitar songs. "From the edge of the deep green sea" was very powerful. Robert`s voice was excellent ("NeverNeverNeverNeverNever let me go she says"). The same goes with "Cut". This time, I must say that Jason was very good in his drumming. He played very well and had no problems during the powerful songs of the set. Whether during "Cut", nor did he mess up the end of "Wrong number".

The highlight of the show was "Disintegration". Robert only played the guitar at the beginning of the song, but then put it away to concentrate on the singing. He walked to the front of the stage and I could see his white painted, pale shimmering face very clearly. It looked sad, fragile and lost. Well, as I’ve tried to describe his aura some sentences before, it was unbelievable. He sank to the floor and closed his eyes. Magic moments ! So beautiful, I could die !! This song ended the main set and the audience went crazy to scream them back on stage.

"Untitled" was the first encore. And I heard some people around me saying: "Unbelievable, this concert is GREAT". Yeah, it was absolutely great. The second encore included "Boys don’t cry", "10:15" and "Killing an Arab". The people went nuts and danced wildly.

At midnight the band left the stage and Robert said his goodbye:"See you next year." But no one could believe that this show should already be over. The people shouted as loud as they could, even though the stage light was already on. A music tape was started and ended the efforts of the audience to get more. Unfortunately, they had to stop so punctual. I was yearning for much more... And I will get it: next week they gonna play the Bizarre festival and I´ll be there!

Next weekend sees the last chances to see The Cure this year, so go to at least one of the last three festivals and you will understand my review of the Zillo Festival much better. So, just another show of another band ?? No, it was THE show of THE CURE !!!

(If anyone`s interested in contacting me or going to some shows with me, he/she can do at LarsWeh@t-online.de . My friends aren`t such cure fanatics as I am, so to most of the shows I will have to go alone. So, it would be great fun and pleasure to meet up with other cure fanatics.)

The third German gig this year took place at the Zillo Open Air, and it was the worst of the 3 dates. Learned from yesterday, I went there with earplugs and it saved me, as I could enjoy the sound much more.

After good appearances of London After Midnight and Lacrimosa, And One were the last band before Cure, and it was a nerve-racking 60 minutes, and I was really happy when the playback - sorry they call it live-gig - of them ended... Cure entered the stage at 22.30 and the crowd took all their energy for pogoing and pushing so much (they weren't very noisy, unfortunately), I prefered to stay a bit in the back, so I could concentrate more on the lights and such, but I didn't have to fear about my life!

Unfortunately, I never got into the show, and I felt the same of the band. Don't understand me wrong, but if you compare yesterday's gig with this one, the mood wasn't the same. The gig was okay, but way too short, only 13 songs + 4 encores. When you warmed up, it was already over (after 90min). But definetely, the show had its moments, when the low cello sound of 'Cold' blew me absolutely over and I found myself with tears in my eyes..., I had hoped for this one, cause Perry doesn't need a Roland XP-80 just for 'Trust'... A great version, which was definetely the highlight, along with 'Untitled', which was a nice surprise as first encore as well, including great 6- string by Robert!

Crowd was disappointing as mentioned, they only pushed and went wild only during the hit singles and the last encore (from 'Boys...' to 'Killing...'). This rounded off my Cure tour this year, imho Zillo festival was the most disappointing (as expected before) gig of the 3 German dates so far. But it definetely wasn't the band's fault, the surrounding just didn't fit for a perfect gig, Dresden was much more in The Cure's style.

The Gig in Hildesheim was the worst Cure -Gig I´ve ever seen ! (I saw many Gigs and i love the Cure !) They had technical Problems during the whole set. It started with one exploded Bass - Membrane during SHAKE DOG SHAKE and the technicians were unable to fix it !!! I don´t know if it was the Cure´s fault?! There were 10000 people at the Festival only to hear The Cure and from the beginning they were not able to fix it !

It also was a very slow gig and it was very short, too . I dont know if it was about their problems? Robert got very angry during the set . Maybe because of the keyboards and Robert´s guitar . They were unable to hear ! The only right tunes were Simon´s Bass and Jasons Drums . Robert wasn´t talking too much . The only two songs that sounded right were the two encores 10:15 and Killing an Arab.

Robert and Simon didn´t enjoy Sinking because of Roger played the intro while Robert was speaking to the audience . Cold was good ( with Simon´s bassline at the end ) and they played a very nice Untitled ( but not with it´s Prayer Tour intensity !) . I hate DISINTEGRATION because of Robert not playing his six string bass ! They can be much better than this evening ! ( total gig time 75 minutes )

i´m looking foward to their own Tour next Year ! (Fucking Festivals)

I just read the other reviews of the Zillo Festival and as a surprise to me Dennis and Nico criticized that gig very much. Actually, I´m wondering why they experienced this show much differently than I did. Well, I think it has something to do with where you are standing. I was in the 3rd or 4th row during the whole concert. And the people around me were enthusiastic. Sometimes, I tried to look back to find out if the rest of the audience felt the same, but it was hardly possible to get an impression of that.

This is what you really have to keep in mind when you are going to a festival. If you read my review of the Axion Beach Rock festival you can see the difference. There, I was standing much more away from stage and I felt the same about the audience as Nico and Dennis did at the Zillo Festival.

Concerning the sound problems, I had in mind what Chris White told us: The Cure cannot do a soundcheck, so it will take 2 - 4 tracks to find the right sound. So, I decided not to be too critical with that at the beginning. I first stood at the left side of the stage and soon got the impression that the sounding would be much better if I can get a place more in the middle. And so it was. The volume wasn`t too high, as it was during some gigs of the other bands playing the festival. A friend of mine, who also stood very close to the stage, put in some earplugs before the show started, but noticed that it wasn`t too loud after the first couple of songs. So, the earplugs were thrown away.

There were some other problems on stage, but I couldn`t see what kind of. And actually, I had not the impression that Robert got angry. I don´t think that my eyes faked me and I think I´m not that subjective that I cannot criticise anything concerning The Cure. They were doing a great show. And that is what the fans surrounding me felt, too.

Robert didn`t speak very much, as usual. But he put much feeling into the songs. And he and Perry played the guitars much better than at the Axion Beach Rock festival in Belgium. I´ve seen The Cure playing "Disintegration" for many times now. And I was blown away by this version, because it was different from all the others I`ve heard so far. Of course, it is great to see and hear Robert playing the guitar during this song, but the Zillo version was new and different to me, so that I pointed it out as a highlight. Robert concentrated on the singing during this song and put so much emotions into it. And I think, it was very important to be able to see straight into his face during this track, to get into that song. It may be, that if you weren`t standing so close to the stage you got a totally different impression of this song in particular and of the whole show in general.

I decided to get as close to the stage as I could after I went to Zeebrugge(Belgium). The light show cannot be as good as on a Cure tour, so it is not worth standing so far away from the stage to see the lights better. I got to know that in Belgium as well. And of course, at festivals there are so many different fans, a lot of fans of other bands. So the audience in the back of the venue may not be so enthusiastic than the fans in front of the stage. That is why I don´t like festivals as well. But I try to catch The Cure as often I can. And if you are going to one of the last festivals where The Cure are playing than just try to get as close to the stage as you can. You will notice a much better sound, a more enthusiastic audience and you can see how much efforts the band put into the gig. And remember, the show in Dresden was a single Cure gig where they had the chance to do a soundcheck and where just real Cure fans came to see them. I felt like pointing this out.

My friend and I left Switzerland at 6.00 am. We took a bus to get to the airport, then a plane, another bus to Hannover central station and finally a train to reach Hildesheim. We arrived at the festival at around 12.00, so we were able to see almost all the bands playing.

I must say I loved the Zillo, especially on Saturday (in fact the only show I liked on Sunday was the Rammstein one) because there were a lot of nice people, black and gothic dressed (those ones wearing clothes of the 17th century were a little bit too much for me...it seemed they only came to the festival for showing their dresses and nothing more...). All bands were related to the dark/gothic movement, and I think this is really important (not like the Como festival...) if you enjoy this kind of music like I do.

About the Cure show...I liked it...sure it's not the best show I have seen so far, but was great anyway...the setlist was more or less like the one of the Como show, but they finally did COLD (nice version)!! By my side, this is enough for me to love a Cure show...just kidding!

I really don't know what people expect from a festival...

That's normal that the sound couldn't be perfect...have you ever tried playing music without having the possibility to do a soundcheck? I noticed that Robert was a bit angry, probably because of the bad sound, or maybe because of other personal problems, but the show went on so...

I don't know what else I could say about it because it seems that Lars already explained everything and, as I agree with him, I'd better stop here this short review.