Out Of This World, Watching Me Fall, Want, Fascination St., Open, The Loudest Sound, Shake Dog Shake,
Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Inbetween Days, Trust, The Kiss, Prayers For Rain, 100 Years, 39, Bloodflowers

Encore: 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab

Interesting to stand and watch the cure setup take shape as green day were playing on the parallel stage. Jason
actually came out and played drums for 10 mins - not that anyone recognised him! They were testing mikes etc,
some guy had to climb up and fix a light. Also got a quick look at the lovely plainsong flashing globe effect. Also
saw the great shimmering blue water backdrop effect.

Out of this world - after quite a long delay - ie they had to repeat the adagio for strings at the start, robert and co
finally came out to huge cheers. Robert was walking around playing the 12 string at the start, and when he smiled at
the crowd it was amazing - is this really the end? Some idiot shined a laser pointer on roberts back before out of this
world started - luckily it didn't come back. There really are some dickheads out there.
Some mention should be made of the crowd conditions at this stage. It was packed!! Absolutely sardine stuff. I was
right in front of robert, maybe 10 metres from the front. There were a lot of people closer who were obviously green
day fans - green day played on the other parallel stage before the cure. I think as they were getting away from the
cure, huge crowd surges occurred - big waves of people. Couldn't help thinking about roskilde at this stage. I
actually couldn't take any pictures then, as I couldn't move my arms enough to reach in to get the camera.
 
Watching me fall - fairly good performance - still very tightly packed at this stage. Someone threw a water bottle
towards robert - luckily it landed between him and roger. We would have been watching smiffy fall if that had have hit
him!!! Welcome to brisbane!!

Want - The last of the great crowd surges occurred during this song - "more space, more oxygen, more room etc". I
think robert cast a slightly concerned look towards us at the front getting more and more crushed. Obviously it was
very hard to enjoy proceedings being this packed in - but I was trying!

Fascination St - A guy near me yelled this out - we got talking and he had done his research on the previous set lists
like me - quite a sneaky way to get a request! From memory things got better crowd wise at this stage - I could
actually move my arms. Robert got big cheers by doing his little riff at the start (8 - 10 - 8 - 10 from top e from
memory!). I remember robert looking up towards the highest areas of the outer stands - reminded me so much of the
In Orange video when he did this - except he didn't do the little smile and lifting of arms in recognition.

Open - noticed that roger actually moves the left hand for the harmonics. Ie I thought he just played the 12th fret
harmonics, but he looked like he was going down to 7th? At the end robert said "thanks..very nice to be back up
here again - very fucking weird day for us to be playing at the end of. Right, in a gentler mood this is called the
loudest sound."

The Loudest Sound - well!! The strangest thing occurred during this song. About 2/3 through the song just slowed
down like crazy! It got slower and slower - like when a record player stops spinning the record around. Really odd
- I was swearing at this stage - thinking oh no they really don't need technical problems on their last big gig. They
trooped through the song - it was all a bit odd. I really cant imagine what happened - jasons drumming just basically
got slower and slower - from the looks on everyone's faces it certainly wasn't the "slow mix" of this song. I wonder
if there is some sort of click track that slowed down, forcing jason to drum more slowly?? Actually listening back to
it, it does sound like there like some machine that makes the low Dr. Who noise was responsible - they all did well
to change pace along with it. Roger was making lots of motioning. Robert sang at the end "it's the loudest soud - it's
the strangest sound - it's the most georgeous sound ive ever heard". Anyway - it kindof made the night a bit more
interesting actually, just as long as everything else was nice and smooth. It added a nice nervous tension in
retrospect, although when it happened I suddenly felt a bit sick in my stomach.

Shake dog shake - Very good again. Got some great shots too, as the lights are so very strong during this song.

Edge of the deep green sea -  such great lights for this song - though I remember in 1992 the lights panned out
towards the crowd a bit more - like beacons. Not all hands in the air up the front initially, but people quickly got the
idea - looked amazing! Robert yelled a big "yeah" and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth - my corgi dog, who
is also named robert (named after a certain someone!), looks like this sometimes. I always feel a bit sorry for the
keyboardists during this song - seems to be just two notes played over and over - couldn't they get a machine
that is similar to the "homer replacing robot" from the simpsons to do this - leaving said keyboardist to do
something more interesting, such as sampling a beverage?

In between days - Slightly worried at this stage, as it was possible that this song would bring all the idiots back -
didn't happen. They were probably already lining up for more beers. Went down a treat with the crowd, of course.
Everyone singing the lyrics. The only "hit" for the night, thank god. I again noticed the slightly shortened version
was on tonight.

Trust - "we're going to change the mood, this is from the wish album, and its called trust". How brilliant to hear this
song so early. Quite an emotional experience. It also struck me that not knowing the setlist in previous gigs would
be a huge advantage, as you would be surprised more often as I was now. I got a nice picture of robert on the big
video screen singing this song. Also showed rogers lovely keyboard work up on the screen. Someone actually saw
me up on the screen at some stage - how embarrasing! Lots of lighters in the air. I can remember saving up for ages
for a black 12 string guitar because of seeing this song being played on the show video - the way robert plays the
intro on the 12 string is wonderful.

The Kiss - thanks robert for playing this again. Who doesn't like going mad on a Jim Dunlop Cry-Baby wah-wah
pedal - and robert does it so well The intro went for ages - which I approved of. For me this was one of the
"moments" of the night.

Prayers for rain - Robert struck quite a nice Jesus on the Cross pose which I managed to capture on camera. Held a reasonable rain - roger sort of loosely came off the last chord at the end. Some git was trying to do the crowd surf
thing right in front of us - no-one was interested.

One hundred years - Lots of recognition for this song - obviously a great many long-time fans around me.

39 - quite a strong version. Has just never grabbed me live the way it did on the first listens to bloodflowers though.

Bloodflowers - Very nicely performed again. Robert said "the last song in this bit, and depending upon whether we
do"..couldn't understand this next bit. "all night - its called bloodflowers". Love the pornography/kiss me drums on
this song.

This is the song where I could finally move enough to put together my "crowning glory"! I wanted to make some
sort of sign to make a request. However I wanted to make something a bit different. I basically designed a circuit of
high-intensity LED lights. I had a bank of red LED's spelling out "I.Y.H." - with the dots being made up of bright
blue LED's. They were all in parallel so that if one went, the others would be ok. I.Y.H. stands for In Your House.
Choosing which song title to make went like this:

(1) is it a song they wont play during the main set (as I thought that they would have to forewarn their lights - design
people to press the right buttons to bring up correct light show etc),
(2) is there a slight chance they will play it? Ie have they ever soundchecked it?
(3) does it consist of few enough letters so that I wont cost me tooooo much to make the sign - so TSDWAY was out
(teddy wasn't successful in sydney anyway!).
(4) is the song short enough so that it doesn't take up too much of the precious time considering the short time the
cure would be onstage (see 3!).
(5) will they be able to fit it into an encore.

I thought In Your House fitted all these catagories - the other one was One More Time, which I would have
preferred to hear actually, however the chances were lower. Anyway - these little LED's (which are f'ing bright!) cost
$2 each - there were about 40 in all, so all up it was quite an expensive little sign - but god was it bright! I held it up
1/2 way through bloodflowers - I'm sure roger saw it - not sure what he made of it! Robert didn't as he was blocked
from my view at this stage. At this stage I sorta knew that it was unlikely - they may not have even come out for an
encore. Anyway - after all that work I had to hold the bloody thing up! Some odd looks as I held it around for people
behind me to see - not immediately obvious what it actually means!

10:15 Saturday Night - drip drip drip

Killing an arab - very aggressive version. Everyone sang along to this - honestly you could BARELY hear robert -
how amazing! A weird sensation came over me as I realised this could be the last ever cure song live that I see.
However the way it was sung made me feel that perhaps not. Difficult with it being a festival en all, but perhaps
"forever" if it was the last ever? !! A big shouted "thank you very much and goodnight - thank you!!". At the end we
saw roberts parents in the side wings walk off with the cure. We were all screaming for more cure, but they were
well over time anyway, so that was it.
 

Generally I didn't enjoy this as much as the 2nd night in sydney - thank god I didn't just see the cure at livid, but
went to the 2 sydney gigs also. I wouldn't recommend anyone judging this band or any on a festival performance -
with the 90 minute time restriction it was pretty difficult to show all sides of the cure. I saw a quite negative review
in the local rag the next day - saying that the cure's best stuff was 15 years ago, so why didn't they play it? Well - they
are touring a new album, so of course they will mostly play that!! I am  glad I saw them 3 times in australia - all in
quite different settings - the first down the back, the 2nd right up the front (perfect) and the third up the front but
crushed beyond belief! Hi to all those fellow sufferers up the front, and hi to the guy from melbourne who got hit in
the face with a beachball - hope you found your brother - I didn't get a setlist! Anyway, a huge thanks to the cure for
coming down to australia - we'll miss you.

Livid was great despite my 5'0" frame being crushed in the "mosh" area...but as soon as I got to an area where I
could actually breathe I had a great time! It was most definitely worth the effort to see what could be the last show
ever (though let's hope not!). I almost got a little teary after they left the stage and Robert did his little lingering
thing...certainly got a lump in my throat and still do just thinking about it! I had to say I didn't get to see alot between
heads and shoulders, but saw quite a bit of Roger (he seemed to enjoy this one a lot more) as I ended up just to the
left of him and got did glimpses of the others.

It went way too quick with quite a short set and  I wasn't really expecting an encore for Livid but was pleased when
they did it! Just before they did Bloodflowers Robert mentioned that it was the last song, "...as long as they don't
pull the plug...". They left the stage and when they cambe back to do the encore Robert said  "We're 6 minutes late
but we'll do it anyway... " I thought he just meant they were running late to schedule until I heard the first strums of
10:15 and realised that he was talking about the song and looking at my watch it was about 10:20pm! The only major
thing that went wrong on the night was when The Loudest Sound started to slow down and Roger started looking
around rather frantically to the roadies....he looked down at his keyboard a few times and looked back at someone
off stage with an exasperated, almost helpless, yet annoyed and agitated look...at first I thought it was Jason, as the
drums were noticeable slowing but I think it seemed more like Roger's pre-recorded back melody or something was
slowing down and the others just had to follow...!

I did at one stage hear a guy close to me say "Play something we all know!" which I have to say annoyed me
somewhat and I held off trying to tell him that some *real* fans don't want to hear the poppy hits all the time. I had
to forgive him is ignorance however since this was a festival with many other bands and he was most likely a
tag-along with his girlfriend or just decided to hang around to see what the Cure were like, after having seen other
bands like No Doubt and Greenday on the same stage and the one next to it immediately before the Cure came on.
That guy did seem to have a little more respect when he hear stuff like Open and Shake Dog Shake...goodness
knows why! ;-) Thank goodness the boys stuck to their guns and played the sort of set they have been playing for
the rest of the tour, I for one would have been a little dissapointed if they'd have given in to poppy songs for the
Festival crowd just to "win them over".

 After the fast performances of bands like The Living End and Green Day, The Cure were the perfect way to end
Livid 2000. Anyone from the 40 000 in attendance expecting to hear a setlist comprised of light poppy songs were
sadly mistaken because Robert and the lads didn't compromise their setlist one bit. Although it was abit
disappointing that they couldn't have played for longer (they'd already stretched their scheduled time by 20
minutes) the sound mix was spot on and the band were really enjoying themselves. The only problem occurred
during The Loudest Sound, when the drums slowed down alot and Roger kept turning around to give 'cut off'
signals to the roadies. However they more than made up for it with a forceful rendition of Shake Dog Shake.

Robert wasn't much on words, but he did declare after Watching Me Fall that 'this has been a pretty weird fucking
day for us to be playing at the end of'. Perhaps he was referring to exhaustion or jetlag. Many times he came up
right to the front of the stage, throwing his arms out as if to say 'what are you all cheering me for?' but it was
obvious he was enjoying himself. Just before Bloodflowers he stated that 'this will be the last song of the
night......unless you all scream loud enough!'
After the song, which was sung with incredible emotion, they left the stage only to come out afew minutes later to
huge chants of 'Cure, Cure, Cure'. He told us that unfortunately they were running abit late and could only play
two songs, however the crowd was absolutely wild for both of them.

The lights were spectacular and the show didn't suffer from being at a festival at all. If The Cure are reading this
I would just like to thank them for coming to Australia and playing as much as they could on the night. After those
2 hours I know I'll never see another live performance that even comes close to matching them.

The Cure Portfolio
Event-Livid Festival
Place-Brisbane, Australia
Time-8:45
Date-Saturday 21st of October

Livid 2000 proved to be an exhausting date for The Cure’s own Dr. Robert Smith, media sources reported that the singer was straining from exhaustion linked to extensive family reunions and lack of sleep.  However this didn’t stop him, dressed in black the frontman made way to the colorful and kaleidoscopic stage to play possibly the last cure show on earth.

Opening with Out of this World was no surprise while engaging in a Bloodflowers theme most of the night.  Festival traders wanted returns and that’s when Fascination Street played it’s magic, by claiming interest in those who were not acquainted with newly acquired Cure preferred stock.  The Kiss and Want two of The Cure’s best opening album tracks did it’s charm on experience traders while “Shake Dog Shake” and “100 years” was the long anticipated return on a long term Cure investment.

The night was no place for day traders, the songs provided that you know older material or have enthusiasm for the album Bloodflowers.  One decline was the nonexistence of a second encore set.  It would have been the perfect ending to hear Faith, The Funeral Party, or even All Cats are Grey for a final encore.  In whole the show was one that was sharply executed by a firm with a matured reputation of twenty-five years. 8 out of 10