Production Profile - The Cure

If moody songs riddled with controlled angst are your symptoms, then Robert Smith has The Cure. For many years the Cure's lighting has been designed by Roy Bennett; this year celebrated designer Abigail Rosen Holmes takes over the helm - this was our impetus for seeing the show this year.

Following a short European jaunt, The Cure's Dream Tour is back in the United States and halfway through their five-week run - mainly in amphitheatres, that commenced on May 18 in Atlanta. This show took place on May 25 at the Starplex in Dallas. The group's latest release, Bloodflowers, which completes the musical trilogy of Pornography and Disintegration, is continuing to receive heavy airplay on US college radio. The show started at 8:15 PM and ran right up to 11:00 - there was no opening act, just 100% Cure. Lighting aficionados looking for comparisons to previous Bennett designs won't be disappointed. Holmes carries the captious legacy of the Cure's look through with flying colors. And she adds her own signatures to the group's performance. Roy Bennett's designs for various Cure tours have been heralded throughout the lighting community for years. To assess the new design, it appeared that Abby used less instruments, but it seemed as through the asymmetrical ighting 'look' was preserved - a group of lights on one side that is not exactly mirrored on the opposite. The emphasis on set pieces was certainly reduced, and there wasn't video per say, but rather projections on four screens - a center rectangular piece with divided verticals on either side - that gave the audience plenty to look at. The abstract images were highly stylized and impressionistic, and included swirly patterns, squished bullseyes, kaleidoscopic effects, and the rising sun flag.

LSD and VLPS are the tour contractors, and Holmes employs thirty Icons and thirty-six VL5s peppered around the stage and floor. A variety of conventional and effects lighting rounds out the rig, including nine Altman Q Lites, five Omni photo floods, five Lowell DP Lamps, PARs, and Diversitronic and Dataflash strobes. There are a couple songs where the lights really move, but primarily the automated equipment is used to change mood and to alter focus from side to side. I noticed the light level was higher than I've seen in the past, with a little bit whiter look every once in a while. The moving lights and floor lighting pick up the other performers effectively. Even though there are no house spots - as usual, the whole band and Robert Smith appeared to have more color range and intensity through Holme's design. Every once in a while, a row of white lights audience blinders about drum riser height would do their thing out in the audience - a little unusual for a Cure show, but still effective.

Abby and The Cure favored deep blues accented with light blues, as well as blue greens, reds, and abstract multicolored projection effects. The Icons produced defined beams and defined areas of light, especially useful in defining space with the projections happening, but most of the looks offered some level of beam diffusion. Speaking of diffusion, they're still using plenty of smoke - as one needs to on a semi-outdoor show - and Abby's design makes the most of the dimensionality afforded by the DF50's smoke.

There's an ethereal mood that the Cure convey in their music. For three hours, the music, projections, and lighting become one big pulsing lava lamp of performance emotion. Abby's design includes all the depth and texturing, sophistication, control, and rhythm that one would expect from a designer of her stature. Congratulations on a fantastic show!

Joe also adds that Robert Smith and Abby are credited as being the Scene/Set Designers.

(Thanks Joe)

"On Michigan's MSU student radio, Impact WDBM, it was announced on Wednesday August 23rd that Robert has plans to go back to the studio (they said in the next couple of months) and record a solo album on which selected tracks will feature some of the band members playing."

(Thanks Ash)

(Thanks Johan)

(Thanks Uyea)

"Russian Cure Fan-Club 'Close To Cure' (http://www.closetocure.csi.ru) presents the first festival of Russian young bands "The Last Day Of Summer". The festival will take place on August, 31 in Moscow (R-CLUB, 4th Roschinskiy proezd, 19/21). Volens Nolens, Otchuzhdeniye and Stamp will play The Cure covers and their own songs. For more information please contact closetocure@csi.ru, Goshmar (goshmar@hotmail.com) or Disintegrator (disintegrator@mail.ru)"

"Russian Cure Fan-Club "Close To Cure" (http://www.closetocure.csi.ru) released the first number of Russian Cure-fanzine "HOT HOT HOT!!!". You will find there news, articles, bootlegs and lives reviews, rare Cure-lyrics and many other interesting information all in Russian. To get the copy of it please contact our fan-club leaders Goshmar (goshmar@hotmail.com), Lilia (l_tsap@hotmail.com) or Disintegrator (disintegrator@mail.ru)"

(Thanks Goshmar, Lilia & Disintegrator)

Saturday October 7th The Powerhouse Stokes Croft Bristol tickets:0117 942 0989

Sunday October 8th Trillians Nightclub Newcastle Free entry - donations to monkeyworld

Monday October 9th Bacchus Nightclub Kingston-Upon-Thames Surrey details to be confirmed

(Thanks Sean)

"I was shopping in a paintball sports store in the city of Industry, when Harold & Joe can on. Very cool song, esp. if its been a long while since listening to it, and a very odd place for it to be playing. I went down the street to the West Covina mall to do a little shopping when I walked by the Hot Topic store, and on their radio, they had StarF**kers playing. And they stop in the middle of the song (probably because of the lyrics) and put on Bloodflowers. Two songs in a day, very nice. =)"

(Thanks Curefan95)

"While on hold with my credit card company they started playing lovesong! i think the woman heard me singing when she finally answered but i didn't care."

(Thanks Katie)

"The two following Cure sightings can be found in the September issue of Mademoiselle magazine......

There is an article called 'Park and Ride'.....about having sex in cars. As disturbing as it may be, there is a side article called 'Music for cramped lovers'...and the number two choice is the cure, it says..."fascination street" by the cure: sulky, sexy, earsplitting guitar wails to mask your moans" (??) .

In another article called "Home alone!"....the writer is talking about their first night home alone without roommates and says,"But hey, no more tedious debates over the Cure versus Tori Amos posters."

(Thanks anonymous, Natelise and Jennifer)

"In the August issue of the Danish music magazine, their is an interview with the American-Norwegian singer Leona Naess, in which she mentions The Cure. Pleas note that this is a rough translation from Danish to English:

" ...my biggest dream is to compose melodies like The Cure, write texts like Bob Dylan and have John Lennons vocals, says Leona Naes with a grin".

The article also states that she has been receiving very good reviews for her debut album, comatised."

(Thanks Christoffer)

"Last night while watching the real world on MTV i was so excited to hear Hot, Hot, Hot."

(Thanks Kimberli)

"Last week my girlfriend and I went to a concert of Luka Bloom in Lokeren (Belgium). To celebrate the year 2000 he played some covers. One of them he announced with "this is a traditional Irish Cure song" (or something like that) and then he played... In Between Days! Luka has really a good taste for music! "

(Thanks Sandra and Johan)

Also, please bookmark the hompage (instead of the news page) or at least check there for updates. Thanks.

(Thanks to Fuji, Craig Pepper and all of the great Australian fans who helped with the info)

"Also in Melbourne at the moment there is a recently released CD called "Alternative Lovesongs" and it has a
cure song on it.  It also features Nick Cave, Blur and other "alternative" bands.  I don't know what cure song is
actually on the CD.  I suspect it is Lovesong."

(Thanks Shannon)

(Thanks Terry)

"I was in Hunters Bar on The Lisburn Rd in Belfast last night and Pictures of You came on the stereo. It was a
remix version that had a really long intro - I think it was the UK 12" remix."

(Thanks Ronan)

"I just wabt to say that the Mercedes ad is not the first one using a Cure song in Italy, For some months
"FINMECCANICA" used a very strange version of "The Loudest Sound" for its ad. They slowed it down ad cut
some voice perhaps to avoid copyright problems !!!!!! "

(Thanks Pierluigi)

"I was at a Chapter 11 Bookstore in Atlanta buying the new Tom Clancy novel when "The Blood" began to play
on the bookstore speakers.  It was great to hear an album track like that in the bookstore."

(Thanks Jason)

" 'Inbetween Days' was played over the PA system while the Chicago WhiteSox were taking batting practice
before a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore last week."

(Thanks Matt)

"I was vacationing in florence, italy last month when i walked into a little shop near ponte vecchio.  i heard the
first few beats of out of this world and almost stopped breathing.  i sat down and just listened, practically
tearing up over the whole thing, reveling in the real music i had been missing.  robert's voice is so beautiful,
especially after you haven't heard it for a month.  they then continued playing the bloodflowers album.  i had
to leave after watching me fall (much to my disappointment), but i was just so so happy.  it was wonderful.  thanks
to whoever was responsible for that."

(Thanks Arianne)

"Yesterday night (8/20/00) I saw A Perfect Circle at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, PA. Right before the
band took the stage, Sinking came on over the PA. No one else seemed to notice. :) "

(Thanks Jeff)

"I just watched a liveshow of the german band "Die Aerzte" on German Music channel Viva. During a song
called "Zu spät" ("Too late") they changed the lyrics. Instead of singing "You´ve been to the theatre with
him...", they sang "You´ve been to Robert Smith with him...". In another song, which I don´t remember, they
mentioned The Cure but it wasn´t that friendly at all. Die Aerzte always do little jokes about other bands and
I´m quite sure that the singer saw a girl with a Cureshirt in the audience, which started these jokes."

(Thanks Martin)

"This past Wednesday morning while I was flipping through the channels I stopped on a new morning women's
news show on NBC called "Homepage." Anyway, at the beginning of their book of the week segment they played
the intro from Inbetween Days."

(Thanks Leah)

"The UK daily newspaper, The Guardian, ran a story yesterday about a band called The Tribe of Toffs who
recorded the novelty single 'John Kettley Is A Weatherman'. In the photo that they showed of the band from
around 1986-1988 the bass player was wearing a Boys Don't Cry T-Shirt!"

(Thanks Ian)

"I just wanted to let you know that I was at the Chicago board of trade today and when the final bell rang for
trading, "39" was the song played as the floor cleared. Definately unusual since most of the time they play
classical music as the floor clears. You could tell because people were kind of like " What the hell is this" on
their faces. But I just had to laugh."

(Thanks Don)

(Thanks Joep and Leo)

(Thanks Bernard and Terry)

"Here's a 'Cure spotting' for you. It was the last place I expected to hear one of their songs. A couple of weeks ago I was on business in Beijing, and while travelling in a taxi, I heard, on a local Chinese-speaking government radio station, 'Friday I'm in Love'. Obviously President Zhang Ze-min and the rest of his Communist buddies are secret Cure fans - maybe there is hope for the people of China afterall! By the way, are there any of you Cure fans here in Hong Kong, or am I the only one? "

(Thanks Paul)

"Every Saturday night while watching "Saturday Night Live," a Merriweather Post Pavilion commerical is played. During the commerical they show concert footage of the bands played during the summer. To my shock Robert Smith is the first person they show and then it's Brittany Spears. But to catch Robert you have to be looking really fast (it took me 3 times to catch him) cause he's gone before you know it."

(Thanks Stephanie)

"Last week while dining at our neighborhood Applebee's, The Upstairs Room was playing at 6:22 pm. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I have heard The Cure at Applebee's. They play alot of 80's retro music. The last song I heard there was Let's Go To Bed. "

(Thanks Cureouskay)

"the other day, on a local (cleveland, oh) college radio station, i caught a spanish language cover of lovecats. anyone know who did this cover? the dj didn't say, so i wasn't sure if it was off the argentinian tribute album, or what... it was really odd..."

(Thanks Genevieve)

"There I was in Italy reading a book and listening to the radio when all of a sudden I heard the solo of Last day of summer , and I thought that they were going to play the song, no it was a commercial for Mercedes cars they have used it for."

Has anyone else heard this ad? If so, please contact us.

"In the new issue of Show Bizz mag, there's a 4 page - very well written article about the Cure farewell, and addresses for the Brazilian fans to contact and help raise a petition to bring the band, since the negotiations must have a final word in the forthcoming weeks.

...they provided 4 fan-club addresses, so the fans can contact them to help raise the petition...

(Thanks Antonio)

"I'm writting to you from Slovenia, Europe and i would like to let you know, that i work at a radio station that is adding the Cure singles Out of this world and There's no if...

Our request e-mail is glasba@radiocity.si and the station is called Radio City Maribor 100.6

I'm doing my best, i hope the fans will do the rest :) "

(Thanks Katja)

"while watching "crossing over with john edwards" tonight (for those of you who have no clue what i'm talking about...it's a show on which a man, john edwards, helps people communicate with their deceased relatives), i noticed that a girl in the audience was wearing one of the black baby doll tees from the dream tour. apparently, her dead father and cat were trying to communicate with her...hmm...."

(Thanks boyishdays)

"This has to be the strangest use of Cure music on TV ever- Saturday I was watching golf- the Buick Open- on CBS, and over the highlights of the tournament they played the intro of 'Watching Me Fall'!"

"I was flipping channels Saturday afternoon and on CBS Sports there was a Special about the upcoming PGA Golf Tournament. During a shot of a long golf putt, they played the beginning of Watching Me Fall as the ball slowly gets to the hole and falls in the cup. They played only the instrumental part with no lyrics, so you had to be a Cure Fan to get the reference. Someone on the Post Production staff must be a Cure Fan."

(Thanks Dvora and Ed)

"I thought I would share a curespotting with you. This past weekend I was in a Virgin Record store in Columbus, Ohio. As I was walking into the store, "A Forest" was playing. I think they were playing a recording of an english radio station and after "A Forest" Robert came on and gave a promo. After that they played "Close to Me" (I think, I was so overwhelmed with happiness that I honestly can't remember what the song was!!!! I was just so happy it was The Cure). I thought perhaps it was a recording of the The Cure's pirate radio broadcast from years back (10 years?), but then when they played Bryan Adams I realized it wasn't.

Also, the big promotion was on 80's music and on one display in the store there was a picture of Robert Smith on one side with Morissey on the other. The caption read, "The 80's, when it was cool to be suicidal or look half dead." (to paraphrase) As soon as I saw Robert's image that close to Morissey's I thought, "uh oh, this just isn't right."

(Thanks Mary Ann)

"I'm Gyorgy (29) from Hungary, and a big fan since '89. I just came back from my honeymoon (Dom.Rep.), and I want to tell you the most important 'curespotting' of my life. Our wedding was on 14.07.2000. The opening track was Plainsong. My friend (a sound engineer) made the bells longer (3 minutes). Imagine! In the room were 200 people in silence, and the Plainsong-bells jingled beautifully. And as the music begun to sound (after the 3 minutes bells), we walked into the room. My dream came true - wedding with my beautiful wife in background THE CURE! During the registrar's words sounded Sarah McLachlan's Last Dance from the Surfacing album, then THE CURE's TRUST! It was fantastic! My family and the friends (who don't know The Cure) said, that the music was not-ordinary and perfect. So, these were my life's finest moments.

(Thanks and congratulations to Gyorgy)

"Thursday, August 10th

We have been contacted by the Australian promoters who are expecting a decision within the next week. They have indicated their interest in presenting this petition to the band as they feel it could make a difference in their negotiations over the next few days - watch this space. Now is the time to get as many people to sign as possible."

"I just today recieved my August issue of Mix Magazine and there's a picture of Robert Smith in the lower right hand corner with the words "On Tour: The Cure'. I'm reading through it right now. It's a cool little article if you're curious and interested in finding out what the Cure uses for live shows. For those who are not so interested in the tech side of things, there are a couple nice pictures of the shows and a few pics of the guys behind the scenes who worked to make the shows sound so sweet. Well, that's all I have to share. Take care!"

(Thanks Carl and Larry)

!!! PARTY IN HALLE/ SAALE - Germany !!!

On September 30th sees another legendary Cure Party in Halle/ Saale...

DJ PCCS Live on Stage - Lament (exclusive Show) - Three Imaginary Boys – last show... (tbc)

entrance fee: 6 DM

starting time: 8.00 pm...

venue: Steg e.V. - Stegpassage 2 - 06110 Halle/Saale - Germany - Tel. 493452900545

http://www.kulturserver.de/home/Steg

steg@kulturserver.de

http://home.t-online.de/home/Dreams.Never.End/curenew1.htm

"On the Today show today (Wednesday), there was a bit about an Olympic swimmer named Jenny Thompson. The bit was about her attempt to win her first individual gold medal. In the background played about a minute of "This is a Lie". Kind of an odd choice, huh?"

(Thanks Jim, Nathan, Kelly O)

"Ok so the other day I was checking out a website for one of my favorite bands (after the cure of course), INCUBUS and in one of the dowloadable interviews the lead singer Brandon Boyd was asked about his early influences in music. Brandon immediately told a story about how the first time he kissed a girl there was a Cure song in the background and he just started listening to them a lot after that. It was a cute story and its great to see that he has the Cure as an influence."

(Thanks Ansky5423)

"I finally had a curespotting today that was actually worth mentioning- it was quite weird. me and my girlfriend went to eat at chipotle (a local mexican grill kind of place) and while we were sitting down and eating there was this mellow electronic music playing over the PA. it was just a straight normal 4/4 beat for a while and all of a sudden when a guitar came in it was playing 'in your house.' i listened to make sure i wasn't dreaming and then the bassline came in and sure enough so did the keyboards- it was a nice instrumental interpretation of the song- i quite liked it."

(Thanks a Boy)

"Today I was with relatives in Webster, Texas at the NASA Space Center recreation and exhibit hall. We went into the IMAX theater to see a film on EXTREME SPORTS(skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, surfing and windsurfing) We were elated during the surfing segment. They showed surfers in Hawaii treading 45-foot waves to the reverberation sounds of "WANT" from theWMS album. They played the entire gradual intro (which included ROBERT'S wailing call - it sounded like a live version, actually :-) Then faded it out when the lyrics were about to start. It was soooooo kooooooollll!!!! You can't miss this IMAX film!"

(Thanks Poescure)

"I was watching pbs yesterday, and they played 'close to me,' the mixed version, during a commercial for children's broadcasting.

(Thanks Christina)

"The other day on Rock N' Roll Jeopardy, the answer was "This surprisingly upbeat song was a hit for Robert Smith and company," under a category called Songs with Days of the Week or something. Someone guessed "What is Monday, I'm in Love?" but no one got it, which was disappointing. It was cool to see, though. "

(Thanks Kitten As A Kat)

"Just wanted to mention that while I was on hold with JCrew Customer Service this afternoon, the hold music was "LoveSong" from Disintegration. It was a delightful surprise. ;) "

(Thanks Alice)

"I was at this store Pacific Sunwear the other day and they had Maybe Someday in there rotation."

(Thanks Nathan)

(Thanks Stefan, Brandon, Michael)

"It seems that there will be another australian box set (faith, pornography,the top). The catalogue # is 8573845352. Should be released very soon.

(Thanks Jean-Francois)

"Mudah Peach , a french young independant label is at the present time preparing a album to compliment THE CURE. This Tribute, " ...imaginary songs " would be ready on november 2000 and would have more than a dozen titles.

The web site - very nice - is on line, and it has the list of the groups http://mudahpeach.free.fr/tribute_to_cure.htm), MP3's (http://mudahpeach.free.fr/mp3_tribute.htm) and to pick the cover of the tribute (http://mudahpeach.free.fr/formulaire.htm ).

(Thanks Fabrice)

"Today I've heard "Maybe Someday" in the programme "Corazon de Verano" (Heart of Summer) on the International Spanish Channel TVE. It was used as a background to a report on the break up of Macauley Culkin's marriage!"

(Thanks Giorgia)

"I was surfing around the net and I ran across this Cure mention (with photo): http://www.smaller.com/article.cfm?id=1458&page=2& "

(Thanks Dayna)

"I was listening to Moby's c.d. Play and they have a song called Machete, it starts out "yesterday I felt so cold I felt like I could die" similar to In-between Days.

That same day we were at the mall and were contemplating if we should go in to the store WET Seal we were about to turn away when they played FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE!!!! We decided to go in."

(Thanks Bernice)

"On the MTV show Undressed (11PM est) on July 31. The cover of "Bloodflowers" (12x12 promo flat) was hanging on the wall of the apartment of the guy who worked for a record company."

(Thanks Ryan)

"Maxim Magazine's web site has a mini-profile on actress/model Shalom Harlow. It contains the folling curey info: "She was making the boys cry: she was discovered at 16, while attending a cure show."

(Thanks Jim)

"There are two different cure phone cards available at:

http://www.world-phonecards.com/acatalog/Catalogue_Main_Page_Cure_Phonecards_33.html

there are only 150 of each of them. They're very expensive though."

(Thanks Fons)

"Thought it was about time we had another curedrink in london and as I have found out about the uks biggest tribute band to the cure doing a gig next month I thought we could combine the two......hope to see you all there!!!!

Contact me or take a look at the cureheads webpage for more details

Ange xx"

(Thanks Martin)

"I am writing to you to ask if you could add an advert for a gig we have organised on Thursday the 4 of August in Nice (France) at a pub called STACCATO 4 Rue Du Pont Vieux Nice 06300 9.00pm.

For the little story, we used to play together about 10 years ago here in the South of France, and we covered a couple of Cure songs; I now live in Glasgow Uk and we have planned this gig to fit in my holidays. it is a kind of private sold out gig as we are allowed to bring only 50 people for security reasons, but the gig takes place downstairs in a cellar and people upstairs can still listen to the music! the set list will hold about 3 or 4 songs from nearly each album until the Head on the Door (about 25 songs).

If you want to have a look at my band's website from Glasgow, here is the address: http://www.multimania.com/spacesheep, but there's not much happening there! "

(Thanks Fred)

"There I was in Italy reading a book and listening to the radio when all of a sudden I heard the solo of Last day of summer , and I thought that they were going to play the song, no it was a commercial for Mercedes cars they have used it for.

(Thanks Leo)

"During the WNBA finals yesterday they were doing a piece on one of the Houston Comet's players Cynthia Cooper and at the end of the piece they played "Maybe Someday" as an outro."

(Thanks Burnt and Poescure)

"I had a cool cure spotting just now. while playing trivial persuit genus III edition, the pink entertainment question was "What group's Wish album starts with Open and finishes with End?"

(Thanks Brian)

"I was at the Oakland As game last night(7/28/2000) and they played a snippet of Never Enough! Just before the Red Sox went up to bat in the 6th inning."

(Thanks Larry)

"I was watching a local South Florida show called Deco Drive as they were doing a piece on "Yoga in Saunas" (these people are wierd what can i say) and it was an awesome suprise to hear "Hot Hot Hot" being used as backround music."

(Thanks Powerpuffxgirl)

"I was hired on with a friend of mine to hold security at a Britney Spears concert at the LA Forum. With -plastic mothers leading their plastic girls through crowds of spear-heads, I was just counting the seconds until I could leave. The saving grace was during the wait for her to come on they played a snippet of Push. Could I just push her away."

(Thanks Naphti)