Out of This World, Watching Me Fall, Want, Fascination St., The Last Day of Summer, Maybe Someday, Edge of the Deep Green Sea, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, 39, Prayers For Rain, 100 Years, Bloodflowers

1st Encore: A Strange Day, A Forest

2nd Encore: Figurehead, Disintegration.

From what I had heard of the Brussels and Paris shows, I knew this Astoria gig would be something very special.
But god ! Nothing could have prepared me for such a beautiful night. To all the fans out there, drink my words and
shiver : Robert and his band of happy bunnies mean it again, maaan !

So, what do we get ? We get a veeery heavy set and some veeery heavy versions from the "Brand New Trilogy"
Pornography-Disintegration-Bloodflowers. -(Robert, I do understand what you mean by this trilogy thing. But did
you really needed to make a marketing tool out of it, hey ?). Figurehead and Prayers For Raaaain were truly
magnificent. (To tell you the truth, I even cried during the former. Ha !) One Hundred Years and Disintegration
kicked arse, like, big time ! The version of If Only Tonight We Could Sleep from the Kiss Me album was simply
gorgeous. As for the new songs, even 39, which is THE song I just can't bear on Bloodflowers- those godawful
lyrics !! Arggghh !!- sounded good, live. And THAT is an achievement.

So, the songs were amazing. But hold on 'cause the most striking thing is -take a big big breath !- Robert sings
beautifully again ! Yes !! Crawley boy truly sounds like he gives a shit again. And that, if I may, hasn't been
witnessed since 1989.

Ladies and Gentlemen, take your tickets for The Dream Tour ! You will be moved.

The emphasis was on creating a darker mood with some of the lighter songs, the fiday’s I’m in love and lullaby’s –
absent. The effect was to create a wall of sound and a mmod which swept over the astoria which was lapped up by
the crowd. The new songs were greeted patiently but the real enthusiasm boiled over when fascination street
arrived and that pattern continued with the most movement in the crowd coming on strage day and a forest.

A brilliant night and as robert finished with the words: "see you in april" I doubt there were many in the crowd who
will not be there in wembley.

The Astoria is a small venue in the heart of London with a maximum capacity of 2000.  It is usually the home of
Rock and Indie bands but last night it was the home of the Cure.

The concert started with a beautiful "Out of this World", followed by another new song "Watching me fall".  The
new songs all sounded great with their long intros and sad lyrics. The setlist was very well chosen because the new
and old songs sat very well alongside one another.  The only bad choice in my opinion was "Fascination Street"
because I have never really liked it, but one of the aims of the show was probably to highlight the trilogy
Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers.  I was also very happy not to have been aware in advance of what
had been played at the three previous gigs because the setlist was almost identical.

During the concert the band looked quite sober, there were no forgotten lyrics and no big technical errors.  It would
have been a disaster otherwise because of the simultaneous webcast and the fact that there were probably loads of
journalists in the venue.  Downstairs in the standing area there was a lot of movement during the gig and people
were constantly jostling for positions.  Upstairs on the large seated balcony it was quieter and more static.

The end of the show was quite surprising because although there was a brilliant "A Forest", there was no classic
ending with "10:15 Saturday Night", "Boys Don't Cry" or "Killing an Arab" which I had become used to, but I
think it made the show even more interesting because I was getting a bit tired of always hearing the same songs at
the end.

Highlights of the show for me were "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep", "Prayers for Rain", "Strange Day", "A
Forest" and "The Figurehead".  Like every Cure song the new ones will take time to grow on me and I'm sure they
will be up there with the old ones in the near future...

The buzz, the anticipation.  Imagine the room packed with admirers awaiting The Cure.  To many this is the band
that wrote the soundtrack to their teenage lives!

Robert stands centre stage.  The janging acoustic chorus strikes up the extended intro to Out of This World.
Amazement heightens.  Verve, gusto, passion.  Where does the life come from that only accompanies the
performance  of these fresh songs?  The vitality of the crowd is waiting to break out, but is momentarily held back
by the false starts of Want.  Finally, the synergy from the new songs spills out over into Fascination Street.  This is
the  first song the crowd are all familar with.  The exicitment bursts breathing more live into the band.  Heck,
Robert even does a jig! This evening has just begun...

Unfortunately the zeal for the new songs doesn't quite make it to the older tunes of the encore.  A minor shame, I
was really holding out for something special with Strange Day.

A great warm up for me.  (For the next leg of the tour I will remember to bring those plasters.  I'd forgotton how
much those boots hurt!  I also came away with a promo poster for the Wembley gig off the wall.)  An important
launch for the  Dream Tour.  With only a few hiccups.  The Cure are bound to be pleased!

The cure were really powerful yesterday evening. And what a wonderful intense concert without any popsong ! 2
dreamy hours ! Robert seemed in a good mood, trying to dance sometimes, moving his arms as a messie !
Many pictures in my head : the best moments for me were want, if only tonight we could sleep, prayers for rain
(with an amazing excellent intro)-100 years (really powerful) - bloodflowers (brilliant).
The end of figurehead sounded exactly as on the pornography album and it just made me want to cry...
Disintegration was not their best live version : Robert just forgot his guitar line on the solo and he seemed tired at
the end.
The songs from bloodflowers were well played : out of this world was a good opener (not as good as plainsong),
watching me fall was much better than the album version, last day of summer and maybe someday were excellent. I
didn't like that much 39 (very agressive and hard). And Bloodflowers is definitively one of their best songs.
The dream tour will be fantastic and really emotional. I hope they'll forget their popsongs to concentrate on their
best songs (siamese twins ? sinking ? thousand hours ? same deep water as you ? faith ? and all the songs of
yesterday evening...).