I caught the Cure last year at the San Jose Arena. It was one of the best concerts I've seen in my life.

If Robert Smith had wanted to top that show Monday night, he would have had to levitate from the stage of the San Jose Event Center. Instead of trying to outdo himself, though, he seemed more interested in rummaging through his back catalog, taking his band and the audience through many tours of the old, the obscure and the rarely performed.

This odds-and-sods approach made for an uneven concert. Whether because of rustiness or a particular number's shortcomings, the band couldn't quite jump-start some of the songs. "Untitled," for instance, was lifeless and off-kilter. Drony, atmospheric numbers, which the Cure can turn into mesmerizing epics, often just spun their wheels. Sometimes there's a reason songs get dropped from the repertoire.

But with a band like the Cure, you're willing to put up with the occasional experiment as long as you can get songs as lovely as a clean and glimmering "Fascination Street," which, three numbers into the set, managed to subdue a somewhat balky sound system and get the band into a groove. "Just Like Heaven," a few songs later, was tender and charming, one of the many reminders that pegging the Cure a "gloom rock" band is ridiculously limiting. The music is passionate, filled with joy as well as sorrow. "Pictures of You" was a little of both, a bittersweet ode that shimmered with gentle emotion Monday.

The Cure seemed to be taking advantage of a lull between albums -- it's launching a major tour next year in support of a not-yet-released studio album -- to stretch out a bit. Monday's concert was one of a flurry of Christmas show appearances sponsored by rock stations, this one hosted by KOME-FM (98.5), which hosted the decidedly electric show as part two of its misleadingly titled "Almost Acoustic Christmas" concert duo.

The band's tinkering mood extended to some of its most familiar numbers, again with mixed results. The haunting and majestic "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" retained its power in concert in a slow-burning, streamlined version that emphasized the guitarists' escalating power chords.

That was another interesting thing about Monday's show. Smith is a phenomenal guitarist, but he seemed content to play rhythm or nothing at all on many songs, leaving the pyrotechnics to his bandmates. Guitarist Reeves Gabrels, David Bowie's favorite axeman these days, sat in with the band for several numbers toward the end of the set. His presence seemed to inject life into the band, particularly on a roaring rendition of the Cure's latest single, "Wrong Number." A messy, rocket-fueled electronica excursion in its studio version, the song worked well in concert. Gabrels' slashing leads added fire to all the bleeps and whistles.

The band played a dozen-and-a-half songs before a four-song encore, a longish show by most standards, but barely a warm-up by the Cure's. (They played for more than 3½ hours last year at the Arena.) Smith apologized for the relatively short set, promising that the band would return next year and play "for hours and hours." I can't wait.

We're trying to keep concert reviews short these days, so I can describe Monday's KOME Almost Acoustic Christmas Part II show by the Cure with one word.

Stunning.

Singer Robert Smith said this one was a throwback to 1989. Lots of guitar-driven dark, wall-of-sound choices during 110 minutes (20 songs), with heavy draws from the albums "Disintegration" and "Head on the Door." (Anyone have a tape?)

Would have been my best show of the year (second to Marilyn Manson in February), if not for some acoustic problems -- the fault of the San Jose Event Center, not the band. This room is always a little dicey. The sound was perfect for Green Day, during the first night of the station's concerts, but it took some moving around to find a sweet spot with no echo or distortion during the more musically complex English band's set.

The crowd, with people driving and flying in for a smaller-sized show, was packed so tightly up front that people were fainting and being carried out. Highlights included: "Push," "Fascination Street," "10:15 Saturday Night," "A Night Like This" and the ever-buoyant "Just Like Heaven."

Well, this was my second Cure show, and I had a great time. We arrived late (traffic was a nightmare), only saw the opening act, Black Lab for two songs. Security was tight when we came in, but I had been to Duran Duran there on Friday and figured out how to get my recorder past them... Opening act finished up about 8:45. Once they left, I promptly ditched my friends to head straight for the stage. The Cure came on at 9:20 and played until 11:15. It took until around Inbetween Days for me to really get up close, but it was worth it. People had obviously been packed up front for a *long* time and started clearing out around then, leaving all kinds of free space. I came within about 10 feet of the stage.

Enough about me, the show was really fun. I just love it when Robert bats his eyes and beams down on us. Sound wasn't great, we got some static and even some feedback at times. It appears that our setlist was closely matched to Dallas, which seemed odd since we only had one opening act. I thought they might play a few more. I also had the lovely idea that they might keep in the theme of "Almost Acoustic" and maybe try to go unplugged for the encore. Again, wishful thinking... Highlight for me was Untitled, of course. Robert was so sweet when he reflected afterwards how sad it makes him to sing it... Lyrics were switched around for both Pictures of You and Distintegration, but that was nice cause it meant the crowd had to stop singing along (half of my boot leg is "sing along with Robert"). Biggest crowd pleasers were probably "A Night Like This" and "Boys Don't Cry", in addition to the standards "Just Like Heaven" and "Inbetween Days". All in all, a fun show. Robert would acknowledge the crowd's requests, which was nice, though it would have been better if they had done "Charlotte Sometimes" as several people shouted...

The Cure concert, song by song

Shake Dog Shake-played with blinding white lights in the background. Perry seemed to be having some technical troubles, but the song sounded good. Seems the group added a little electronic sound to the song for the live show.

Torture-I was surprised to hear this song. It probably would’ve sounded good, but the cracking of Perry’s guitar overshadowed the performance.

Fascination Street-While this is one of my favorite songs, I was somewhat disappointed to hear one of the more recent singles being played after two of the lesser played songs opened. Sounded like it did the other five times I’d heard it, except for the keyboard line, which had a weird, overly "metallic"(for lack of a better phrase) sound when first played.

A Night Like This-I thought this was one of the better songs of the evening. The keyboards for the piano sounded great. Everything worked well on this song.

Push-definitely one of the high points of the evening. Simon was hopping all over during this song, and I’m sure the opening guitar riff stuck in everyone’s head long after the show was over. One of the more memorable songs.

Just Like Heaven-I groaned when I heard the opening for this song. I liked the idea of them playing more of the obscure songs, and then they go and play this. The rest of the crowd felt differently, unfortunately.

The Holy Hour-I was absolutely shocked to hear this song. The opening sounded excellent, though it seemed to lose a little something as it went on. Still, I loved hearing one of the oldies.

100 Years-the best song of the night, even if they had to incorporate an artificial drum machine. They played this song intensely, and the crowd responded. White lights flashing everywhere. Absolutely hectic. I loved it.

Same Deep Water as You-This song sounded good, but it was a little too calming. After 100 Years, it seemed to cool the crowd down a little too much.

Inbetween Days-another single I really didn’t want to hear. It sounded good enough, and I still love the ending of the song, but I think something a tad bit more obscure would have been better for this particular show.

Pictures of You-this is probably one of my five favorite Cure songs, but, again, I hated hearing with this particular setlist. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized they were playing the shorter "single version in preference to the longer version.

Never Enough-I really liked this song too. It came off aggressively, which I liked.

From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea-another song I’d place in the "better" category for the night. The mood changes of this song really kept me into it, and the solo sounded great. The song also was also a perfect setup before Reeves Gabriel entered.

Wrong Number-Reeves came on for this song, and it sounded amazing. I heard this song in LA live, and there I didn’t think it went over too well. Here, though, everything went perfectly. I liked the extended ending, and everyone on stage looked excited(Simon was hopping like crazy. Perry, Reeves, and Robert all looked really intense).

Cut-One of the best songs of the evening. The opening cello sound was perfect for an intro, and the crowd was still excited from Wrong Number. The combo of Cut and Wrong Number was, too me, the second best part of the show, behind 100 Years.

Disintegration-played with Reeves. This was definitely the worst of the three songs played with Reeves, and it sounded pretty average.

Untitled-this was the perfect song to play after the encore. The song was very mellow, but it put me in a trance. Definitely the best of the slower songs played on the evening.

Boys Don’t Cry-Another overplayed single that I’d heard live 5 times. Sounded good, but no different than the BFD version.

10:15 Saturday Night-pretty good song, but more of a setup for Killing an Arab.

Killing an Arab-Yeah, this song should be on the overplayed single list too. However, with the added keyboards, this song has a live version which is superior to the album one. They always seem to play this song with intensity, and this version was played with lots of it. Better than the LA version, though I liked the BFD version better.

Overall, I’ve now been to five Cure shows now(I saw them on the Swing Tour in San Jose and Phoenix, at BFD, American Legion Hall, and last night). Out of those five shows, I honestly believed this was the best of them, largely because of the set list(I decided to not look at previous sets so I'd be surprised). The energy was there, especially during 100 Years, Killing an Arab, and the first two songs with Reeves. I was in a trance for most of the concert. I loved every minute of it.

The show was absolutely amazing! I'm still recuperating from the mosh pit experience... who would have thought there would be a mosh pit at a Cure concert?

Well I sacrificed my safety to get up to the stage, and I took a ton of amazing pictures with the camera I smuggled in my flowers for Robert. For those of you who were there, I was the blond girl in the long purple dress... if I accidently elbowed you in the pit, I take this opportunity to offer my sincerest apologies. The pictures I took will be in the next issue of the UC Berkeley zine, ECHO, along with my review of the show. If anybody wants copies of the pictures, I would be happy to oblige, just let me know. A friend also managed to record the show... I don't think it's a very good recording, but for those of you into bootleg trading, I now have the San Jose show available.

Well, Robert looked gorgeous and played fantastically, as did the rest of The Cure. I couldn't quite tell what was on Simon's shirt... was it "Tough as F*ck!"? ...such an odd lad. Even though I don't particularly like the song, Wrong number is very impressive live. The highlights were The Holy Hour, 100 Years, The Same Deep Water As You, From The Edge of The Deep Green Sea, and Untitled. All in all it was an incredible experience that will be fondly remembered.

This was my second cure show, the first being BFD this past summer. Seeing as how I was nearly a mile away from the stage at BFD, I was determined to be as close as possible this time. I arrived at the venue around 7.15 and noticed that everybody was sitting on the floor of the arena and it looked more like a yoga convention than a rock and roll concert. For those of you unfamiliar with the venue, the SJSU Event center is a basketball court with seats on the sides, and in back. Just about half the floor was filled with these people sitting elbow to elbow, but the extreme sides of the floor were empty of people. I was right up front on the very far side of the floor when suddenly everbody stood up and I dashed into the crowd. After being shoved here and there and threatened by a morbidly obese man, I somehow ended up 3 feet from the barrier in front of the stage, and there I stayed for the rest of the night! After an average-at-best performance by Black Lab, the Cure graced us with their prescence at approximately 9.15 and played an incredible set that lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.

I'm so very glad that they were performing alone and not with any of those other "flavor of the month" bands that have joined them at these festivals. Robert was dressed in the same outfit as his Tonite show appearance...with steel-toed boots and these adorable black and white laces that totally clashed with his outfit...just like Robert! Simon was his usual self (decked in a shirt which read "tough as f**k"), frequently making faces and shrugging to someone who had caught his attention. And even more frequently drinking his bottles of Budweiser. Roger and Perry seemed in very good form, but Jason received the "speed it up" sign from Robert twice during their set. Not the first time I've heard him doing that. Mr. Smith completely took me by surprise opening with shake dog shake (complete with shakes!), but for the most part, it was a more moody set than expected. The holy hour, push, untitled, the same deep waters as you, and disintegration, do I prove my point? I expected High to be played but maybe Robert was just in one of those moods where only the saddest of songs sounds pleasant. Despite the constant moaning and shoving of the crowd, and the near broken ribs I suffered...it was an extremely pleasant night! Definitely better than BFD and definitely better than any concert I've been to in recent years. My highpoint would have to be the eye-contact I made with Robert, I quivered and almost fell apart screeching after that! At the end of the night, after all his fellow band members had exited the stage, Robert slowly floated off stage alone and waved farewell. "We'd love to play for hours and hours...but we really must go..." Please come back as soon as possible Robert!!!

This was the fourth time that we, Kristin and I, have seen the Cure. The show was supposed to start at 8pm with Black Lab (a disappointing = waste of time that the Cure could have played) and the doors were supposed to open at 6:30pm, of course everything was late, but that is expected. Anyway, we got there at 5:55pm and there was a huge line. Apparently, people had started lining up at Noon!

We got fairly close to the stage anyway since a lot of people sat back in the bleachers. We were amazed by the choice of songs played, especially Shake Dog Shake, Torture, and The Holy Hour. Even though it was awesome to hear a lot of the rare songs we kind of missed some of the "standards" like Prayers For Rain, The Forest, The Walk, and Why Can't I Be You. (Kristin is dying to hear Love Cats.) We love counting the number of times that Robert sings the word "again" in The Forest, at BFD I believe we counted 41 times! It is also fun to see Robert dance around in Why Can't I Be You and also to see how long he will hold the note in Prayers For Rain.

The band really seems to be more cohesive than on the Swing Tour. Perry has picked up some of Simon's dance moves, something that we have not seen before. There were no lights ever on Jason so we never got to see him. It's interesting to watch Roger because when he is getting into the music he shakes his head in a "no" manner (side to side) instead of in the "yes" manner. I think that Reeves Gabriel, even though he looks a bit like my old Grandfather, did a really nice job filling in the gap left by Porl Thompson. Gabriel can play guitar really well, at the risk of sounding silly...he rocked! We both thought that he "saved" Wrong Number. It was neat to be able to actually understand Robert between the songs, most of the time anyway.

At the beginning of the encore Robert said, "We would love to play for hours and hours but because of time we can only play four more songs." After Untitled he said, "I love singing that song, but it always makes me sad." Then, for me, was the highlight of the show: I was in a bit of a rambunctious mood and "Boys Don't Cry," "10:15 Saturday Night," and "Killing An Arab" were played with a lot of fun energy, the band was smiling, and those songs really took on rather a punk flavor. The whole crowd, at least in the pit area, all started jumping and screaming and singing. It was a lot of fun. Robert really got into the mood of "Killing An Arab" and was pointing his left hand, in a gun shape, down at the stage and really moved his arms a lot!

While we are on this subject and to sort of backtrack a little bit, it was really rather spooky during Torture when Robert would sing "...like a vampire bat..." because he was wearing a black t-shirt with a dark gray, loose fitting, long sleeve shirt on top and he would put his arms out to his sides with his elbows up and sort of flap his arms like wings. And with the lights shining behind him it was truly freaky!

I must say that my trek up to San Jose from San Diego this past weekend was quite an adventure! There's quite a lot to do up there and it's all not so far away. The Cure have always enjoyed their visits there. Anyway, this was indeed a special show. The band was in high spirits right up to the end. Robert was ready to leave before beginning "Killing an Arab" , but found the energy to push through to the end. They really did well on 10:15... much better than the Hollywood show just over a month ago, and I think he was out of breath for Killing.

Anyway, despite the traffic jam from hell trying to get into San Jose State campus, everything went well. The opening band, Black Lab was surprisingly tolerable. At 9:17 the Cure took the stage with Shake, Torture, and Fascination....., I was dreaming. A Night like This, and Push were both outstanding and more energetic than on the Wild Mood Swings venues. Just Like Heaven was smooth but not as exciting as New York where he did both the long "YOU" and the new "You You You". Holy Hour, 100 years, and Same Deep Water were trance like. What an awesome combination. But, the electric drum bits were a little cheesy because they were louder than Jason's drums....AND I must stop to remember Boris... It seemed that they were finally going to play the extended Pictures; however, Robert rushed to the microphone at the last second and sang on. He did have the vocals down though, they even had the lights right. Never Enough and From the Edge OTDGS, were not clear, Robert and Perry were not complementing each other.

The band was so relaxed the whole evening though. Everybody was smiling, even Perry (he was a lot more sober than he was in Hollywood or New York!) Reeves Gabriel came out for Wrong Number, Cut , and Disintegration. I have to say sadly for me, Cut was the best of the three as they jammed on through it and it sounded great. I had recorder problems for the first part of Disintegration and was distracted.

For the encore, Untitled was priceless!! They played Boys Don't Cry for the first time in a month, it too was very good! As I said before 10:15 was incredible and left Robert dry, but still good for Killing. Robert said they were out of time, but I wonder about that, it was only 11:12?? I think because of the series of shows and the distances this week, their not overdoing it. They did play 20 songs though and despite my critical review of the show, it was one not to miss!! The band was soo relaxed and happy. They played old wonderful, meaningful songs.

Robert was dressed up in a burgundy double-breasted suit (Looked like Pajamas when I first saw him). He must have been dressed up for the Chat. Roger was in all black. Simon, Perry and Jason were all in T-shirts. The Venue was good too at least from up-front. The pit moved around a bit as a few college people tried to crowd surf, but was more forgiving then the American Legion Hall or Irving Plaza. The lights were surprisingly good, very good! The sound was a bit washed out due to overload. It wasn't perfectly clear, and from center stage it was too Bassy. For the Cure Fan though, sit back and digest the Sweetness of these shows. The Cure really have taken care of us these past two months and with new and old and unpopular material to feed to us. We owe many thanks. Until next year.....I'm afraid I won't make it to Shepherds Bush.