Dark bonds – Newspaper Kommersant No. 210 (7411) of 11/12/2022

The English band The Cure is on a long tour, which was called “Lost World”, that is – almost according to Conan Doyle – “The Lost World”. “Lost World” is part of the title of the new album “Songs of a Lost World”, which the band did not have time to finish before the start of the tour and is still preparing for release. The tour began on October 6 with a concert in Riga and will end in December with three concerts at London’s Wembley Arena. Boris Barabanov watched a show at the Palau Sant Jordi Olympic Arena in Barcelona.

The Cure are actively performing new songs on the current tour, and fans are posting inspirational “phone” videos on social networks. Still: since 2008, the group has not released new material, although they have toured extensively. Shows of impressive running time have become a staple of The Cure. The Russians also saw big concerts of The Cure – in 2012 at the Maksidrome festival and in 2019 at the Afisha Picnic. In the current tour, Robert Smith and his comrades will not come to Russia, and yet the group for the domestic audience is included in the pantheon of stars who deserve special fan veneration; a whole generation of new fans of The Cure has grown up, who see their songs as a source of inspiration not only for bands like Agatha Christie or Semantic Hallucinations, but also for Muse and the whole new wave of post-punk.

One of The Cure’s “radio hits”, “Lovesong”, sounded already at the beginning of the evening. A block of “Lovesong”, the new song “And Nothing Is Forever” and the rarely performed “Burn” became the first emotional peak of the show: in conjunction with the recognized hit, Robert Smith put a completely new number, and it was followed by a thing that rested entirely on Jason’s drums Cooper. Throughout “Burn” Cooper and his instrument were on screen, and with the help of video engineers, this simple plan created an apocalyptic feel.

It was in this part of the show that the Kommersant correspondent clearly realized that he had never heard such a high-quality concert sound in Russia. It would seem that the domestic concert and entertainment craft has been actively developing over the past 10–15 years, all the big foreign stars have visited us, many of them more than once. Some projects were rolled out literally on a turnkey basis, with all the required production. Nevertheless, at The Cure concert there was something that was practically never seen in Russia – the ability to perceive the entire sound picture as a whole and at the same time the phenomenal emphasis of each instrument, each part, as if a single guitar riff or bass line was put into a transparent tube , laid directly into the hall, and delivered, as if by pneumatic mail, directly to the ears.

The main part of The Cure concert was a mix of songs from different periods, and its culmination was one of the group’s first hits, “A Forest”, released back in 1980. Continuing the analogy with Conan Doyle’s novel, I would like, of course, to play with the word “dinosaurs”. Everyone here, except Jason Cooper, is over 60, but, unlike the antediluvian lizards, The Cure survived, are in great shape and do not agree to the role of a traveling museum. With bassist Simon Gallup climbing onto the monitor with his instrument at the ready, and Smith jamming with Reeves Gabrels (they were once introduced by David Bowie), one has to wonder if they’re not the best live band on the planet today. The Cure’s ambitions never meant anything like U2’s big-budget amusement park or Depeche Mode’s heavily oiled touring car. Their ambitions are different.

The 17,000-seat indoor stadium was filled with people dressed mostly in black, and the age of the majority suggested that their children had long grown up and would come to this hall on Blackpink rather than on The Cure. The concert was a meeting of people who did not need extra explanations and signs – they came to the group with which they lived their lives. And a loyal long-term fan base is still more important than an expensive attraction.

The Cure at this concert rallied people, but from this people did not become a crowd. The first encore featured some of the darkest and most gothic songs united around “Prayers For Rain” (the sound of rain on the speakers was the overture of the concert, it also sounded in the pauses between tracks). And in the final part it came to dancing, and the Kommersant correspondent noted with satisfaction that he still remembers the words “Lullaby”, “Friday I’m In Love”, “Close To Me” and “Boys Don’t Cry”. Robert Smith didn’t seem to stray either.