the cure hottest tour

The Cure's tour has been the surprise hit of the year. This is why it captivates.

COLUMBIA, Md. – It's the sleeper hit of the year , packing venues from Los Angeles to New York, allowing fans to channel the inner goth of their youth and dazzling with a career-spanning set list of nearly 30 songs.

Before the kickoff of their tour in May in New Orleans, The Cure hadn't rounded the U.S. since 2016. But last year’s excursion through Europe allowed idiosyncratic frontman Robert Smith, 64, and the band the opportunity to burnish their live production.

Both sleek and melancholy, the two-hour 45-minute show is ticking down to its final concerts, with a July 1 finale in Miami followed by festival spot dates this fall.

At an overflowing Merriweather Post Pavilion on Sunday, the band demonstrated why their following remains fanatical.

The Cure's new music is as solid as its classics

Fans have awaited a new album – "Songs of a Lost World," which pairs with the tour's name, Shows of a Lost World – since Smith unveiled the title in March 2022.

Despite no definitive arrival for The Cure’s first release since 2008’s “4:13 Dream,” the band has included several new tracks in all of its shows.

The main set was bookended with newbies – the Pink Floyd-like opener "Alone" and the devastating "Endsong," a bleak musing on aging ("No hopes, no dreams, no world … I don't belong here anymore") filled with guitar squiggles and crashing cymbals.

But sandwiched between the aching longing of "Lovesong" and the starry backdrop, cerulean lighting and serrated guitar riffs of "At Night" sat a definitive new Cure creation.

Smith turned his back to the adoring audience, swaying while conducting indefatigable drummer Jason Cooper, before unleashing a voice wracked with pain on "And Nothing is Forever."

Smith’s voice enveloped lyrics such as "My world has grown old, but it really doesn't matter if you say we'll be together," suggesting his heart still swells with sadness, if not darkness.

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The Cure's set list taps into deep cuts as well as hits

An early highlight came when Smith faced off with bassist Simon Gallup – the second-longest tenured member in the band – for the chugging intro to "Pictures of You."

The ballad, from The Cure's landmark 1989 album, "Disintegration," showcases all of the hallmarks of their sound – watery guitars, evocative synths and a slow burn into an explosive soundscape that unfolded beautifully on stage.

It was also one of their few hits played before the encores, which were packed with casual-fan favorites including the jubilant "Friday I'm in Love" and equally buoyant "Just Like Heaven" (both always seem at odds with The Cure's frequently gloomy thrust).

Instead, the nucleus of the show spotlighted lesser-heard gems such as "Burn," from the 1994 soundtrack to "The Crow," complemented by crimson lights ricocheting around the stage as Cooper pounded the layered beat; the metronomic groove of "At Night" and hand-clapping of "A Forest," both from the band's second album, 1980's "Seventeen Seconds"; and "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea," from 1992's "Wish," which was anchored by relentless keyboard plinks from Roger O'Donnell until the song erupted into a thrilling rumble.

Let's also tip the hat to Reeves Gabrels and Perry Bamonte for their dancing surf-guitar licks on "Push," an album track from 1985's "The Head on the Door."

Robert Smith hasn't changed

Smith remains the focal point of The Cure – and how could he not be with his trademark heap of black hair, blur of scarlet lipstick and lacquered eye makeup? His voice, a blend of sad wail and smooth croon, endures as a distinctive, undiminished sound.

But Smith also makes his appreciation for the band's audiences known. On Sunday, as he has throughout the tour, he spent the first several minutes of the show meandering to each section of the stage, quietly greeting fans with his eyes and accepting gifts tossed at him.

His gaze was one of gratitude mixed with disbelief that after all this time, the people still show.

Apparently, the sad prince of goth pop is still the king four decades on.

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The Cure Doubles Its Previous Best With $37.5 Million North American Tour

The Shows of a Lost World Tour sets career highs for the band, even after fighting to keep ticket prices low.

By Eric Frankenberg

Eric Frankenberg

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While those figures are personal highs among the band’s global touring career (dating back to The Cure’s first Boxscore reports in 1985; the band has been touring since the late ‘70s), apples-to-apples comparisons against its North American treks spotlight the tour’s success even better. The $37.5 million revenue total is more than double the band’s previous North American high of $18 million in 2016. And the 547,000 tickets surpass 1992’s 402,000.

Routing for the Shows of a Lost World Tour mixed arenas and amphitheaters in the U.S., yielding its biggest returns in the expected markets. Three shows at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl grossed $4.9 million and sold 50,800 tickets, while a three-peat at New York’s Madison Square Garden brought in $4.1 million from 44,300 tickets. Atlanta, Montreal and San Francisco follow.

Nightly attendance never dipped below 12,000, and averaged 15,629. That marks a 43% improvement over 2016’s 10,952, which itself was a 48% bump from The Cure’s 2008 tour. The band hadn’t averaged such a high attendance since 1989, when it paced 19,539 tickets in support of Disintegration . (That album was, at the time, the band’s highest charting album on the Billboard 200 [No. 12], containing its highest ranking hit on the Billboard Hot 100 : “Love Song” [No. 2].)

This bar graph mirrors the peak-valley-peak trajectory that Billboard reported on Janet Jackson ’s comeback spring tour. Both acts have sprawling discographies with close to a half century’s worth of beloved songs. That’s the kind of pitch that, after an extended break, can elevate an artist into their highly profitable legacy era, so-to-speak, soaking one’s deep roster of hits in a bath of nostalgia and extra disposable income.

Janet Jackson and The Cure may not make for the most obvious apples-to-apples comparison. But like Jackson, The Cure established a Boxscore peak around the turn of the ‘90s, before letting its legacy build to a new peak in the 2020s. Like Jackson, The Cure is touring without new material, many years away from its last album. (The band last released a new studio set in 2008.) Their 2023 shows marked the first North American tour for either act since the mid-2010s.

And while the effects of Jackson’s highly publicized mid-'00s controversy don’t quite apply here, the Shows of a Lost World Tour generated its own batch of headlines earlier this year. Frontman Robert Smith spoke out about various “ scams ” and fees , courtesy Ticketmaster and the larger secondary market , resisting dynamic pricing, platinum ticketing and scaled re-sale . The band went as far as to ensure that every show had a price option of $30 or less. Further, after fans made Smith aware of exorbitant fees, he negotiated with Ticketmaster to issue refunds.

As lines between primary and secondary ticket sellers blur and pricing strategies become more creative, concert revenues for arena acts have surged . And though it may seem like perfect timing to pair those ticketing practices with The Cure’s much-anticipated return to the stage, the band’s defiant public stand against gouging fans worked out in the end.

The Shows of a Lost World Tour averaged a $68.54 price, 37% less than the triple-digit average ticket among the top 50 tours on Billboard ’s midyear 2023 recap. Only one artist in that top 50 – The 1975 – averaged less ($63.01), and that was with mostly European shows, where tickets haven’t exploded in the same way as the U.S., where The Cure played.

Still, the tour made enough money to have ranked among the top 20, had its shows been eligible (The midyear charts are based on shows between Nov. 1, 2022 – April 30, 2023. The Cure’s tour began on May 10.). The Cure’s bulked-up, career-high grosses are owed to consistently sold-out crowds, perhaps nudged along by the band’s steadfast dedication to affordable tickets.

Though the Shows of a Lost World Tour has wrapped, The Cure will play a slew of festivals plus a few standalone shows in Latin America between September and December.

Stretching back to 1985, The Cure has grossed a reported $146.1 million and sold 3 million tickets.

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The Cure Set First North American Tour in Seven Years

By Daniel Kreps

Daniel Kreps

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.

The Cure will embark on their first North American tour in seven years this summer as the Rock Hall-inducted band ’s Songs of a Lost World trek have added four additional dates to their previously scheduled slate of 30 shows.

Following their 2022 European jaunt, Robert Smith and company will kick off their 2023 North American dates on May 10 in New Orleans. After circling the U.S. and parts of Canada — including three-night stands at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl and New York’s Madison Square Garden — the leg concludes July 1 in Miami.

The new dates include a stop in Portland as well as additional nights in Montreal, Atlanta, and San Diego. “Please please please don’t buy tickets if you don’t intend [on] going to the show,” the band pleaded on Twitter, hoping their tickets make it into the right hands and don’t end up on secondary markets.

FOUR EXTRA SHOWS ADDED TO OUR ’SHOWS OF A LOST WORLD’ NORTH AMERICAN TOUR – THREE OF THEM ARE ‘EXTRA NIGHTS’ – 21ST MAY SAN DIEGO / 17TH JUNE MONTREAL / 28TH JUNE ATLANTA #ShowsOfALostWorld2023 1/5 pic.twitter.com/BDVMGBnNXB — The Cure (@thecure) April 5, 2023

Fans can sign up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan now ahead of the on-sale dates. New dates will be available beginning Friday, April 7 at 10 a.m. local time. The fourth extra show, the Portland stop, will be “an experiment to see whether non-transferable tickets are enough protection,” thus Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan will not be required for those purchases.

Other than the Cure’s 2019 performances at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, the Austin City Limits Festival , and their own Pasadena Daydream fest , the band last staged a North American tour in 2016.

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This post was updated on April 5 to include four additional tour dates.

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The Cure Announce 2023 North American Tour

By Evan Minsker and Jazz Monroe

The Cure have announced a 2023 tour of North America. Find their Shows of a Lost World dates below. The schedule comes with three dates apiece at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl and New York’s Madison Square Garden. Support on all dates comes from their longtime tourmates the Twilight Sad .

In recent years, Robert Smith has been teasing a Cure album, giving regular progress reports. In 2019, after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ( by Trent Reznor ), Smith said , “If I’m optimistic it will be finished before the start of this summer.” The album still hasn’t materialized.

The band’s last studio album was 2008’s 4:13 Dream . In recent years, Smith has collaborated with Gorillaz and remixed Chvrches , Deftones , and, just this week, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds . Last year, the band reissued 1992’s Wish . See where the Cure landed on Pitchfork’s list of “ The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s .”

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

05-10 New Orleans, LA - Smoothie King Center 05-12 Houston, TX - Toyota Center 05-13 Dallas, TX - Dos Equis Pavilion 05-14 Austin, TX - Moody Center 05-16 Albuquerque, NM - Isleta Amphitheater 05-18 Phoenix, AZ - Desert Diamond Arena 05-20 San Diego, CA - NICU Amphitheatre 05-23 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 05-24 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 05-25 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 05-27 San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre 06-01 Seattle, WA - Climate Pledge Arena 06-02 Vancouver, British Columbia - Rogers Arena 06-04 Salt Lake City, UT - Vivint Smart Home Arena 06-06 Greenwood Village, CO - Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre 06-08 Saint Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center 06-10 Chicago, IL - United Center 06-11 Cleveland, OH - Blossom Music Center 06-13 Detroit, MI - Pine Knob Music Theatre 06-14 Toronto, Ontario - Budweiser Stage 06-16 Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre 06-18 Boston, MA - Xfinity Center 06-20 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden 06-21 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden 06-22 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden 06-24 Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center 06-25 Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion 06-27 Atlanta, GA - State Farm Arena 06-29 Tampa, FL - Amalie Arena 07-01 Miami, FL - Miami-Dade Arena

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The Cure Announces 2023 North American Tour

The Cure  has announced tour dates that will bring them to the U.S. for the first time since 2019.

The Lost World Tour will kick off on May 10 in New Orleans and continue through summer, coming to a close on July 1 in Miami. Along the way, the band will appear in major cities like Dallas, Seattle, Denver, Chicago and Toronto, plus perform two three-night runs in Los Angeles and New York City.

You can see a complete list of dates below.

Tickets will be available via Ticketmaster's verified fan sale program  beginning on March 15. In a statement, the Cure noted that "apart from a few Hollywood Bowl charity seats, there will be no 'platinum' or 'dynamically priced' tickets on this tour."

The alternative legends have been off the road since wrapping up a fall European tour last year. The run was their first since the pandemic and featured the debut of material from the band's long-delayed new album.

According to frontman Robert Smith, the Cure has recorded at least 20 songs for two prospective albums. In April 2022, he told  NME  that the first one is tentatively titled  Songs of a Lost World . It marks the band's first studio album since 2008.

Guitarist Reeves Gabrels previously told UCR that the Cure had amassed a wealth of recordings during the pandemic that could fill up to three albums. "We were overproductive," Gabrels said. "Which is great, except it means you really can't judge the songs until you get them close to finished. You kinda have to bring all that material up to the point where you can hear what they are."

Smith had hinted in a  2021 interview that the upcoming songs could be the end of new music by the band. “The new Cure stuff is very emotional,” he revealed to  The Sunday Times . “It’s 10 years of life distilled into a couple of hours of intense stuff. I can’t think we’ll ever do anything else.”

The Cure 2023 North American Tour May 10 - New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center May 12 - Houston, TX @ Toyota Center May 13 - Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion May 14 - Austin, TX @ Moody Center May 16 - Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater May 18 - Phoenix, AZ @ Desert Diamond Arena May 20 - San Diego, CA @ NICU Amphitheater May 23 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl May 24 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl May 25 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl June 1 - Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena June 2 - Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena June 4 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena June 6 - Denver, CO @ Fiddler's Green Amphitheater June 8 - Minneapolis St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center June 10 - Chicago, IL @ United Center June 11 - Cleveland, OH @ Blossom Music Center June 13 - Detroit, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre June 14 - Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage June 16 - Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre June 18 - Boston, MA @ Xfinity Center June 20 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden June 21 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden June 22 - New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden June 24 - Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center June 25 - Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion June 27 - Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena June 29 - Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena July 1 - Miami, FL @ Miami-Dade Arena

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THE CURE announce 2023 North American tour

The Cure have finally announced a long-awaited North American leg of their A Lost World tour — which includes three nights at L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl and three nights at NYC's Madison Square Garden. Support on all dates comes from their longtime tourmates the Twilight Sad. Check out the full itinerary below.

Additionally, the headliners announced: "The Cure have agreed all ticket prices, and apart from a few Hollywood Bowl charity seats, there will be no 'platinum' or 'dynamically priced' tickets on this tour."

Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster Verified Fan on March 15th at 10 a.m. local time.

The Cure 2023 North American tour dates: 05-10 New Orleans, LA - Smoothie King Center 05-12 Houston, TX - Toyota Center 05-13 Dallas, TX - Dos Equis Pavilion 05-14 Austin, TX - Moody Center 05-16 Albuquerque, NM - Isleta Amphitheater 05-18 Phoenix, AZ - Desert Diamond Arena 05-20 San Diego, CA - NICU Amphitheatre 05-23 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 05-24 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 05-25 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl 05-27 San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre 06-01 Seattle, WA - Climate Pledge Arena 06-02 Vancouver, British Columbia - Rogers Arena 06-04 Salt Lake City, UT - Vivint Smart Home Arena 06-06 Greenwood Village, CO - Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre 06-08 Saint Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center 06-10 Chicago, IL - United Center 06-11 Cleveland, OH - Blossom Music Center 06-13 Detroit, MI - Pine Knob Music Theatre 06-14 Toronto, Ontario - Budweiser Stage 06-16 Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre 06-18 Boston, MA - Xfinity Center 06-20 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden 06-21 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden 06-22 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden 06-24 Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center 06-25 Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion 06-27 Atlanta, GA - State Farm Arena 06-29 Tampa, FL - Amalie Arena 07-01 Miami, FL - Miami-Dade Arena

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Tuesday was gray, but for Cure fans, it was all love at the Hollywood Bowl

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Robert Smith stood onstage Tuesday evening and let the final notes of the Cure’s “A Night Like This” — in which the 64-year-old goth-rock icon promises, “I want to change” — ring out over the capacity crowd at the Hollywood Bowl.

“The last time we played that,” Smith told the audience, “I thought to myself: Do I really want to change?”

It’s hard to see why he would: Nearly half a century after the release of the British band’s debut single, the Cure is enjoying a moment right now, the kind coveted by pop stars one-third Smith’s age. Tuesday’s gig under cloudy skies was the first of three sold-out dates at the Bowl on a tour for which the Cure sought to keep ticket prices relatively low; Smith’s willingness to publicly criticize Ticketmaster — he even got the company to refund fans for a portion of its much-hated handling fees — has given him something of a folk-hero vibe on social media even as he gets accustomed to being a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted the Cure in 2019.

The tour is building anticipation for a long-promised studio album, the Cure’s first in 15 years; here the band played a handful of impressive new songs, including one Smith said it had never performed before. With its generous blend of hits and deep cuts spread over nearly three hours, though, the Cure’s current live show also feels like expertly designed fan service — this summer’s black-mascara counterpart to Taylor Swift’s splashy and bedazzled Eras tour .

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After Saturday’s festival was cut short due to a threatening storm, Siouxsie and Iggy Pop returned on Sunday to perform for multiple generations of SoCal goths.

May 22, 2023

The Cure isn’t the only celebrated survivor from its generation of U.K. post-punk and new wave acts. Depeche Mode is on the road in very fine form behind its strongest LP in years, and just this past weekend Siouxsie (who once counted Smith as a member of her Banshees) made a celebrated return to the American stage at Pasadena’s Cruel World festival. In November, Kate Bush will follow the Cure and Depeche Mode into the Rock Hall thanks in part to last year’s discovery of her old song “Running Up That Hill” by young viewers of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”

Why exactly this stuff seems to be in the air comes down to some extent to fortuitous exposure like that and like HBO’s recent use of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” in “The Last of Us.” But there’s also something about this luxuriously gloomy music — the way in which it honors the exuberance of misery — that means it’s always drawing new fans. Of course the idea of goth would continue to reverberate in an era when teenagers just have to pick up their phones to find a reason to be depressed.

Headlining the Bowl almost seven years to the day since the Cure’s previous visit — and wearing a black T-shirt advertising the defunct Hollywood Star Lanes bowling alley — Smith found as much feeling as he ever has in oldies like “Pictures of You” and “Lovesong” as he floated his lovelorn yelp over dreamy overlapping guitar lines. (Though Smith is the band’s sole remaining original member, the Cure’s live lineup — with guitarists Perry Bamonte and Reeves Gabrels, bassist Simon Gallup, keyboardist Roger O’Donnell and drummer Jason Cooper — is long on musicians he’s played with for decades.)

“Charlotte Sometimes” and “Push” were surging rockers riding muscular rhythm-section grooves; “Shake Dog Shake” showed off Smith’s childhood fascination with Jimi Hendrix. At times you could think of the Cure as a sort of emo-psych jam band, stretching out the likes of “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” to find untapped reserves of luscious melancholy.

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The Cure’s new songs were both the stormiest and the most sentimental of the night, with florid keyboard licks against synthesized strings that called to mind Aerosmith’s late-’90s power-ballad phase; indeed, the seeds of the grandly emotional “Another Happy Birthday,” which Smith said the Cure was playing for the first time Tuesday, are thought by the group’s most devoted to date back to 1997.

As the clock ticked toward the Bowl’s 11 p.m curfew, Smith and his mates wham-bammed through their biggest hits — “Friday I’m in Love,” delirious with agony; “In Between Days,” shuffling and funky; “Just Like Heaven,” a mad, passionate tumble — before closing with “Boys Don’t Cry,” where the pride Smith still takes in a sense of vulnerability could bring a tear to your eye.

When it was over, the frontman stuck around onstage for a few minutes, soaking up the crowd’s adoration — a renewable resource, it turns out, but not one he sees fit to squander.

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The Cure announces 30-date “Shows of a Lost World” North American tour

The Cure this morning announced its first North American tour in seven years, with plans to bring its “Shows of a Lost World” trek to the U.S. and Canada for 30 dates beginning in May, with three nights apiece in New York City and Los Angeles.

The tour opens May 10 in New Orleans and runs through July 1 in Miami, with dates in between in Dallas, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Montreal, Atlanta and more, plus three-night stands at the Hollywood Bowl and Madison Square Garden. The Twilight Sad, once again, will open all shows.

See full dates below.

Tickets will be available through a Ticketmaster Verified Fan Sale beginning Wednesday, March 15, and it will require pre-registration to access. Fans will be able to register for a maximum of five different shows, and registration closes at 10 a.m. Pacific Monday, March 13. Head over here for details and to register.

In an email to fans, bandleader Robert Smith — in his trademark all-caps — makes this promise:

THE CURE HAVE AGREED ALL TICKET PRICES, AND APART FROM A FEW HOLLYWOOD BOWL CHARITY SEATS, THERE WILL BE NO ‘PLATINUM’ OR ‘DYNAMICALLY PRICED’ TICKETS ON THIS TOUR

The Cure’s touring lineup had been stable for more than a decade, with Smith joined by his longest-serving bandmate, bassist Simon Gallup, as well as drummer Jason Cooper, keyboardist Roger O’Donnell and guitarist Reeves Gabrels. Smith surprised fans last fall by bringing back guitarist/keyboardist Perry Bamonte, who played in the band from 1990 to 2005.

Smith has been teasing the completion and release of The Cure’s 14th studio album Songs of a Lost World — the group’s first since 2008’s 4.13 Dream — for more than a year, at one point suggesting it would be released before the band embarked on a lengthy European tour last fall .

That didn’t happen, although the group performed a number of new songs live, including “Alone,” “Endsong,” “And Nothing is Forever,” “I Can Never Say Goodbye” and “A Fragile Thing.”

The Cure’s European tour last year marked the group’s first live shows since before the pandemic, when The Cure followed up its Pasadena Daydream festival in Southern California in September 2019 with appearances at the Austin City Limits Festival in Texas and a one-off stadium concert in Mexico City.

The band has not toured the U.S. since 2016.

Here are The Cure’s new dates:

The Cure 2023 tour dates

May 10: New Orleans, LA — Smoothie King Center May 12: Houston, TX — Toyota Center May 13: Dallas, TX — Dos Equis Pavilion May 14: Austin, TX — Moody Center May 16: Albuquerque, NM — Isleta Amphitheater May 18: Phoenix, AZ — Desert Diamond Arena May 20: San Diego, CA — NICU Amphitheatre May 23: Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Bowl May 24: Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Bowl May 25: Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Bowl May 27: San Francisco, CA — Shoreline Amphitheatre June 1: Seattle, WA — Climate Pledge Arena June 2: Vancouver, BC — Rogers Arena June 4: Salt Lake City, UT — Vivint Smart Home Arena June 6: Denver, CO — Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre June 8: Minneapolis St. Paul, MN — Xcel Energy Center June 10: Chicago, IL — United Center June 11: Cleveland, OH — Blossom Music Center June 13: Detroit, MI — Pine Knob Music Theatre June 14: Toronto, ON — Budweiser Stage June 16: Montreal, QC — Bell Centre June 18: Boston, MA — Xfinity Center June 20: New York, NY — Madison Square Garden June 21: New York, NY — Madison Square Garden June 22: New York, NY — Madison Square Garden June 24: Philadelphia, PA — Wells Fargo Center June 25: Columbia, MD — Merriweather Post Pavilion June 27: Atlanta, GA — State Farm Arena June 29: Tampa, FL — Amalie Arena July 1: Miami, FL — Miami-Dade Arena

PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS

• The Cure’s deluxe reissue of “Wish” to include 21 unreleased demos, “Lost Wishes” EP
• The Cure’s new album “Songs of a Lost World” could be out by September
• Robert Smith says “MY DESIRE TO RELEASE A NEW ALBUM IS OVERWHELMING!”
• The Cure unveils 44-date European tour in 2022, but don’t expect U.S. dates before 2023
• The Cure turns Pasadena Daydream into ‘the best day of the summer’ with scorching set
• The Cure to release 6-disc ‘40 Live: Curaetion-25 + Anniversary’ audio/video box set
• The absolute best of The Cure: All 225 songs ranked by Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers

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The Cure Are This Summer’s Hottest Rock Tour. Yes, Really

There’s something so beautifully weird about the triumphant return of the Cure. It’s a crazy moment for fans — of all the fandoms in pop history, this is one of the most bizarrely long-lived, open-ended, multigenerational, cheerfully unkillable. Robert Smith and his crew of English gloom gods are hitting the road all summer, introducing music from their long-awaited album, Songs From a Lost World, which is so long-awaited it still doesn’t exist. The summer’s biggest rock tour is the goth-moppet lover boy who sang “Boys Don’t Cry” more than 40 years ago? That’s a future nobody would have predicted for this band — not even Smith.

But nobody even hates the Cure anymore, which once seemed like a crucial part of the fandom’s identity. Smith has never lost his aura of bemused angst, with his dripping gobs of eyeliner, his smeared red lipstick, his sticky black-bat swamp of hair. He always gives the vibe of a mischievous toddler who just got caught playing with mother’s makeup. For a tortured genius who used to be one of the most divisive figures in music, he really thrives in the role of a universally cherished elder, everybody’s favorite eccentric goth auntie. Strange as angels, perfect as cats, but always himself.

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He’s touring the U.S. at the same time that his old friend and bandmate Siouxsie Sioux is doing her first shows in a decade. Throw in the Love and Rockets reunion, and you’ve got a hell of an undead summer for gothic icons. It might feel like a paradox to stand in an arena full of strangers, singing about soul-crushing loneliness, but that’s the essence of being a Cure freak. It’s been 15 years since their last album, yet this music is timeless. The band that gave the world Disintegration is the band that will never, ever disintegrate.

The last time he dropped new music, on 2004’s (kinda great) The Cure and 2008’s (kinda not) 4:13 Dream , he was going for concise pop. But the Lost World material is darker, heavier. The six-piece Cure has evolved into a black nail-polish jam-band monster, playing marathon shows stuffed to the nipples with deep cuts. They toured Europe last year, debuting five tunes from Lost World , like the powerful “Endsong” and the astounding show-stopper “Alone.” It builds for nearly ten space-rock minutes, as Smith wails, “No hopes, no dreams, no world/No, I don’t belong here anymore.” He signs off with the farewell, “Left with nothing at the end of every song.”

Smith has spent years promising the new album is almost done, any day now, honest. (“It’ll be worth the wait,” he said last year backstage at a London awards show. “I think [it’s] the best thing we’ve done, but then I would say that.”) That’s something diehard fans have come to expect. As he told Rolling Stone the last time he released new music, back in 2008, “I like the sound of deadlines as they rush past my head.” He always makes us wait, he always promises it’s his best ever, and he always vows it’s the last one he’ll ever make. A few years ago, he said this one will be like Disintegration, except without songs that “lighten the mood,” and he didn’t even mean it as a joke.

Longevity didn’t really seem like it was in the cards for this band. By the time the Cure released their 1986 greatest-hits album, Standing on a Beach, one scholar calculated that Robert Smith had already died 74 times in his lyrics. It already seemed strange that these Three Imaginary Boys had lasted so long, especially since the high-strung frontman was always threatening to quit music. As he said in 1996, “I will be 40 years old in April ’99, and I think it will be awful to enter a new millennium still in a band called the Cure. I just can’t see myself doing it. I would be horrified .” On the cusp of his birthday, he wrote a song called “39,” moaning, “The fire is almost out, and there’s nothing left to burn.” But as it turned out, he wasn’t even halfway done. This guy never stops. It takes a really twisted kind of obsession to sing “I wish I’d stayed asleep today” every night for four decades.

He originally made his bones with gloom soufflés like Faith, Pornography, and Seventeen Seconds. But then he chose to open up the music. He’s never been the kind of rocker who pretends he didn’t want to get famous. “I decided to be a pop star,” he told Rolling Stone in 2004. “It’s so ludicrous that I’m gonna go from goth idol to pop star in three easy lessons.” He nailed it on the first try, with 1982’s “Let’s Go to Bed,” a brilliant synth-pop groove about a couple staying up all night to bond about how miserable they are. “Suddenly ‘Let’s Go to Bed’ was turning into a big hit, on the West Coast particularly, and we had a young, predominately female, teenage audience,” he continued. “It went from intense, menacing, psychotic goths to people with perfect white teeth. It was a very weird transition, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was really funny.”

This tour has brought out his fighting side, which we hardly ever see. He’s one of the very, very few bankable stars to speak out about Ticketmaster and the absolute hellhole that the concert-ticket racket has become for fans. He kept ticket prices low for this tour, resisting the bait-and-switch scam of “dynamic pricing,” only to see Ticketmaster double the cost with their added fees. He declared , “I am as sickened as you all are by today’s Ticketmaster ‘fees’ debacle.” He got a minimal refund for fans — but there’s something touching about his willingness to get his hands dirty here.

One of the eternal riddles for fans: How can Smith reign as rock’s ultimate troubadour of romantic despair when he’s been happily married for decades to his childhood sweetheart? But that’s one of the artistic masks he wears, like his makeup. As he said back in the 1990s, “The notion that people have of me, that I’m not a grown-up, I live in this imaginary world and wander about London in pajamas quoting Baudelaire, is not true.” (He went on to explain that it’s untrue because he lives by the sea, not London. “Now I march briskly up and down the beach quoting Baudelaire at the waves!” This is why he is Robert Smith.)

“I could die tonight of a broken heart,” he sings on one of the new songs, “A Fragile Thing,” although, as Al Pacino would say in The Godfather Part II, he’s been dying of the same broken heart for years now. He does end up solitary in most songs — especially “Just Like Heaven,” his most famous hit, a wedding banger despite the fact that it’s a love story with an impossibly sad ending, leaving Robert stuck in his alone-alone-alone misery. But somehow the emotional destruction still feels cathartic. If that’s a contradiction, it’s one where Cure fans feel right at home.

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The Cure’s 50 Best Songs, Ranked

Ahead of their massive tour kicking off Wednesday, we ranked the best tracks by West Sussex’s favorite goths, from the wedding-dance staples to the B sides and beyond

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The only band that can be said to be better than the Cure is the Beatles.

I’m not saying the Cure is the second-best band to ever exist. (Though, pointedly, I am not not saying that.)

I am merely saying there is a rarefied place where the Beatles hover that few groups get to, where their achievements are so singular and monumental, and their influence is so vast, that they can’t be measured against anyone in any real way. There’s just no point in debating the Cure versus Fleetwood Mac or A Tribe Called Quest or R.E.M.; they’ve all become fundamental parts of the universe, an entire color.

Robert Smith, a precious lad who once wore a dress to his Crawley, West Sussex, school, formed Malice with a few mates in 1976, the Year Punk Broke, and began gigging around town. With Smith as the guitarist, that band eventually morphed into the Easy Cure by 1977 and included Mick Dempsey, Laurence “Lol” Tolhurst, and Pearl Thompson, all of whom would fall out with Smith at one point or another. (Thompson would leave and rejoin more than once, and he’s not the only member to have taken such a route.) Eventually, a few singers left, and Smith decided he could do as good a job as anyone in the frontman department. He also decided that the name Easy Cure was a bit too hippieish for his tastes.

After helping to set the template for New Wave and post-punk (spiky guitars, moaning bass, lots of free-floating anxiety) on its 1979 debut, Three Imaginary Boys , the Cure went on to record the trilogy of Seventeen Seconds , Faith , and Pornography between 1980 and 1982, firmly establishing, alongside its peers in Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees, the sound, look, and subculture of goth.

If the band had quit then, it would have been an underground legend. But something quite unexpected happened, as the Cure followed that run of albums up with the absolutely frothy pop single trilogy (lotta trilogies with this band) of “Let’s Go to Bed,” “The Walk,” and “The Lovecats.” These songs proved that Smith was willing to push back against his image and that he wouldn’t let anyone define the Cure except himself.

From there, the Cure set out to prove that it could do whatever it felt like: absolute pop bangers, wedding dance staples, guitar epics, or That Real Goth Shit. It conquered the hearts of America’s arty weirdos with the essential 1986 Standing on a Beach compilation and conquered everyone else with 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and 1989’s Disintegration.

Along the way, Smith became a cultural icon, and his look (poorly applied lipstick, hair that makes it look like he stuck his finger in an electrical socket, deeply skeptical eyes) became entrenched as both a uniform and a shorthand. Few ’80s rock stars can match his reach. He was one of the first celebrity guests on South Park . He inspired Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman , James O’Barr’s The Crow , Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands —and also Tim Burton’s whole vibe. He was the main plot point of a Mike Leigh film and the inspiration for a Sean Penn film I haven’t seen on account of it looking terrible. He also long ago defeated his rival Morrissey. (Not aging into an anti-immigration weirdo is a real knockout blow.)

The Cure has ever been part of the Morose Teenager Starter Kit, alongside Harold and Maude and Blankets , and its influence will endure as long as kids are bummed. There are now die-hard fans who are much younger than 1992’s Wish , the band’s last truly great album.

Smith always has been canny about how he manages his legacy. He takes care of his fans. ( The man tried his best to sell you a $20 ticket in 2023 .) He never skimps on the songs he knows people want to hear. (The band famously kept playing more hits even after its 2009 headlining Coachella set was cut off.) He wisely cultivates relationships with his greatest acolytes. (The 2004 traveling festival Curiosa featured Mogwai, Interpol, the Rapture, and Thursday.) His features are smart and surprising. (No one else could guest with Blink-182, Crystal Castles, and Gorillaz and make it all make sense.) The reissues are top-notch and loaded with revealing bonuses. (I’m glad the guitars on last year’s Wish reissue are way louder now.)

A new album, rumored to be called Songs of a Lost World , has long been promised, and I don’t discount the idea that it could be great. The idea of falling off is ageist and shows a misunderstanding of how creativity and inspiration work, and guitarist Reeves Gabrels, who joined the band in 2012, has been a B 12 shot for the live show. Perhaps this chemistry will follow the band into the studio. But until we get news about that, the Cure is set to start its latest tour, and during its four-hour sets, you will definitely hear many songs from this list. The top 20 is all but a lock.

So let’s pull on our hair and put on our pouts and get to the opening song on this list, shall we?

50. “The Lovecats” (stand-alone single, 1983)

In which the Cure pivots from being the world’s most serious band, one that was widely heralded as the successor of Joy Division, to being the silliest band in the world. A big part of Smith’s genius is that he can make moves like this feel like they aren’t acts of desperate commercial pandering or what we would now call trolling. (Though both are somewhat the case here.) You can tell that one day Smith woke up and decided that after three albums of uncut gloom, he just wanted to dance around, sing about cats, and make some meow sounds.

Also, more Smart, Artistic Bands should take a page from the Beatles’ book and make goofy songs whose ideal audience is young children. Get ’em while they’re young.

49. “M” ( Seventeen Seconds , 1980)

Play this tale of all-consuming romantic paranoia punctuated by stabbing guitar and chilling negative space, and then go back to the euphoria of “The Lovecats.” That happened within three years, which boggles the mind. I simply can’t think of a modern analogue to such a wild mood swing that actually works. It would be like if Beyoncé’s Renaissance Vol. 2 turned out to be a shoegaze metal album.

48. “The End of the World” ( The Cure , 2004)

Produced by Ross Robinson, best known for his work with Korn and Slipknot, the Cure’s self-titled comeback album suffered from the overly compressed win-the-loudness-wars-at-all-costs production style that was common at the time, and you can often feel the presence of a Geffen A&R man saying, “Come on, Bob, give us something KROQ can feel.” But “The End of the World” shines through all that, and Smith’s repetition of the title and the refrain “I couldn’t love you more” during the bridge (the man loves his percussive consonants), as well as Roger O’Donnell’s cathartic keyboard sigh at the end, proved the Cure still had it.

47. “Why Can’t I Be You?” ( Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me , 1987)

Love the metaphor of being so into someone you just want to become them. Million points off for Tolhurst wearing fucking blackface in the video. I understand that a big part of the Cure’s visual presentation back then was painting their faces different colors , but someone should have said “no, Lol, no” on this one.

46. “The Exploding Boy” (B side of “In Between Days,” 1985)

The Cure has a ton of great B sides where the band either goes into realms a bit too weird for its proper albums or shows just how much fun it can have when it plays it loose and off the cuff. This one is the best, skipping along nimbly on some wheezing sax, energetic strumming, and a classic Smith couplet: “You talked until your tongue fell out / And then you talked some more.”

45. “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep” ( Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me , 1987)

No one but the Cure could make the feeling that you’re slowly losing your mind and could maybe stand to lay off the stuff for a bit sound so damn alluring. Somewhere, a young Abel Tesfaye took notes.

44. “The Loudest Sound” ( Bloodflowers , 2000)

The turn-of-the-century Bloodflowers suffers from a tendency to drift along and often feels like a collection of lush soundscapes more than a collection of songs. But this portrait of a couple that has nothing to say to each other anymore after many disappointing years but also doesn’t have the strength to end it showed that Smith can always find a new way to approach heartbreak.

43. “All Cats Are Grey” ( Faith , 1981)

As a fellow cat man, I see you, Robert.

42. “Disintegration” ( Disintegration , 1989)

While the general public might think of the Cure as Smith and some blokes, that couldn’t be further from the truth. This song is a keen example of the muscle and grace that Simon Gallup, whom Smith has called “my best male friend throughout my life,” brings to the proceedings. You could build a Victorian castle on that bass line, yet it glides along as unhurried as the sea.

(There was a brief time a few years ago when Gallup left the band, but luckily, he’s back now. Let us not speak of it again.)

41. “Mint Car” ( Wild Mood Swings , 1996)

By 1996, the Cure was well out of fashion and several years away from canonization. The imperial phase had ended, as it always must. Wild Mood Swings is a disjointed album. But at least Smith was still having fun.

Here, he sweetly makes a promise to the jaded romantics who find solace in his life’s work. One day, to your utter bafflement, you will find someone just as strange as you, and it will all work out in the end, and you will never quite understand why.

40. “Closedown” ( Disintegration , 1989)

When Kyle Broflovski said, “ Disintegration is the best album ever”? No lies detected.

Let us now praise Roger O’Donnell, a former member of the Thompson Twins and the Psychedelic Furs who was brought on for the Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me tour, as Tolhurst’s alcoholism impaired his ability to play. On “Closedown,” O’Donnell’s oscillating keyboard, like a switch you flip on and off to see a brief glimpse of heaven, stunned the listening public, who then decided it didn’t need to hear a synthesizer again for the rest of the 20th century.

39. “Primary” ( Faith , 1981)

I had a job, briefly, in Tampa, one of the most goth cities in the world, before everyone realized I should not be writing about real estate. My one respite during this distressing period was a nightclub called the Castle. (There was a 60-something man who was always there and always dressed in lingerie. It was a whole mood.)

Goths love to dance, and you’d better believe this song, which sounds both over-caffeinated and pillowy at the same time, got those fishnet stockings on the dance floor posthaste.

38. “Hot Hot Hot!!!” ( Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me , 1987)

Smith doesn’t really have the voice to pull off the “goth goes to church” funk thing he’s going for here, but the man earns points for never doing anything halfway. Fortunately, Gallup and drummer Boris Williams go deep enough to help the song earn all those exclamation points.

37. “Other Voices” ( Faith , 1981)

Smith can tap into real moments of despair and alienation that only the most perceptive artists would even see. On “Other Voices,” he contemplates the feeling that you are part of the world, but only barely, always just on the outside, while Gallup’s bass line personifies the feeling when claustrophobia begins emanating from inside you.

36. “High” ( Wish , 1992)

I don’t know how Smith makes absolute nonsense like “kitten as a cat” and “licky as trips” sound like poetry that William Wordsworth would envy.

35. “Faith” ( Faith , 1981)

The Cure is a very sexy band, and “Faith” is a very sensuous form of despair bolstered by a very slutty bass line. A perfect soundtrack for barely being able to leave the bed or strutting around the graveyard in your hottest cape. Eros and Thanatos are kissing cousins, after all.

34. “The Caterpillar” (stand-alone single, 1984)

Butterflies are one thing, but caterpillars are not cute, and women generally don’t find it a compliment to be compared to an insect. At best you are telling her she will be beautiful at some point . But, again, Smith can make almost anything sound like poetry.

33. “Prayers for Rain” ( Disintegration , 1989)

This is Smith at his most desperate, calling out for a salvation that seems all but impossible. Even a drop of hope seems too much to ask for. The Cure’s best epics make you wait for it while also making every moment count. This is the sound of being sucked into the ocean of despair, punctuated by cinematic drumrolls and Thompson’s vertiginous swells.

32. “Fire in Cairo” ( Three Imaginary Boys, 1979)

When it comes to post-punk, it’s the notes you don’t play. The Cure was a bunch of imaginary boys here, confident enough to keep it as minimalist as possible while painting a portrait of nervous lust and green enough not to realize it’s a bit insensitive to compare a really hot babe to a historic series of riots that leveled a city .

31. “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” ( Wish , 1992)

One of the central paradoxes of Smith is that he is, to this day, married to Mary Poole, whom he met when he was 14 and about whom he once said, “I always think of myself as Mary’s boyfriend, never her as my girlfriend.” (Their first date was to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. )

But he’s also one of rock’s finest chroniclers of loneliness, romantic despair, and that feeling that if you just found her , it would all be OK. But who would want a mess such as you?

How do we reconcile this? Well, we don’t. Brian Wilson didn’t surf, William Roberts II wasn’t an international drug lord, and Bruce Springsteen never worked at a factory. It’s art. It only matters if you can sell it and make it feel real for the listener, and the Cure certainly did so on this tale of romantic implosion. You can also hear roadie-turned-keyboardist-and-guitar-player Perry Bamonte shred hard to prove that he belongs.

30. “The Figurehead” ( Pornography , 1982)

Metalheads, punks, emo kids, indie rockers—they all love the Cure because they can all see parts of themselves in the world Smith created. Pornography helped spawn a billion different metal subgenres and created a template followed by everyone from Trent Reznor to Deafheaven to Grimes. Key track “The Figurehead” is weaponized moroseness and is one of the hardest songs in the Cure catalog, Tolhurst’s martial drums and Gallup’s throbbing bass line all but marching you off a cliff.

29. “Burn” ( The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack , 1994)

I’m not saying the soundtrack to The Crow is the best soundtrack ever. Of course I’m not. But … we got Nine Inch Nails covering fucking Joy Division. We got the best Helmet song. We got Jesus and Mary Chain going wild. We got the underrated cult shoegaze band Medicine. And we got “Burn,” in which Robert Smith gazes on a decimated metropolis, knowing it could only end thus. Man has fallen, yet he is not without pity, nor is he without epic guitar elegies.

28. “Six Different Ways” ( The Head on the Door , 1985)

While Smith was in the midst of the “none-more-goth trilogy,” he was also pulling double duty by playing guitar in Siouxsie and the Banshees. The two were frequent tour mates, and Smith often played two sets a night.

This experience pushed him to swap out minimalism for maximalism and embrace wall-of-sound guitars and outré textures and arrangements. The dark, theatrical glamour of Siouxsie Sioux and time spent at the goth nightclub the Batcave eventually influenced Smith’s signature look. (It is quite striking to watch early videos of the Cure from when they looked like a bunch of dudes who waltzed onstage straight from the pub.)

The high point of Smith’s Banshee era was the album Hyæna , which contained the enthralling single “Swimming Horses,” cowritten by Smith. He later recycled that song’s piano motif for this equally beguiling bit of art pop, though he added an off-kilter 6/8 time signature and lyrical musing on how we’re all different people depending on the day to make it feel like more than self-plagiarism.

27. “Killing an Arab” ( Boys Don’t Cry , 1980)

Smith wrote many of the best-loved songs from the Boys era while a teenager, placing him firmly in a lineage of precocious geniuses alongside Fiona Apple, Paul Westerberg, and Stevie Wonder. This was one of those songs.

If Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” is both the most misunderstood song of the ’80s and the song most cynically appropriated by the forces the artist stood against, then “Killing an Arab” is the second. Infamously inspired by Albert Camus’s existentialist novel The Stranger , it was a well-intentioned howl against unthinking cruelty in all forms but was later played by right-wing, anti-Arab DJs, which prompted Smith and his management to add a sticker to the album’s cover that said, “The song ‘Killing an Arab’ has absolutely no racist overtones whatsoever. It is a song which decries the existence of all prejudice and consequent violence.”

While it has more than a whiff of “white teenager reads a classic, decides to solve racism,” it is impressive how fully formed the Cure sounds on this early outing, and young people are allowed to be a bit strident when their hearts are in the right place.

26. “Charlotte Sometimes” (stand-alone single, 1981)

The universe, taking the form of MTV and, later, music magazines, once sent me a much-needed message.

“Hey, kid, you don’t like sports, you’re still recovering from the religious school you barely escaped from, and while you can sense that everything around you is fucked, you don’t have the language to articulate that at all. Also, you don’t really have much in the way of friends, and let’s not even get into the whole ‘girls’ thing. It’s just not going well for ya, huh?

“Can we interest you in lifelong devotion to the Cure?”

“Just Like Heaven” and such could get you in the door, but it’s Standing on a Beach that turned untold numbers of lost boys and girls into acolytes. One of the key tracks was the stand-alone “Charlotte Sometimes,” a song with enough mystery and allure that it didn’t seem to come from a place you’d heard of before, a song you could base an entire personality around, a way of viewing the world.

25. “End” ( Wish , 1992)

During an extremely difficult period of my life when a toxic job began to eat away at my soul, I once again found solace in the Cure, as I have throughout my life. I particularly turned to this song and its opening lines: “I think I’ve reached that point / Where giving up and going on / Are both the same dead end to me.”

Even as your teenage pain turns into something more adult, Smith is there for you. He still sees you, and he still understands.

24. “Grinding Halt” ( Three Imaginary Boys , 1979)

The ’00s were filled with bands trying to nail this over-amped, jittery but danceable vein of post-punk. No one quite replicated it, but there are rewards in trying.

23. “The Same Deep Water as You” ( Disintegration , 1989)

Smith was deeply influenced by the Romantics: Dickinson, Brontë, Keats, all your faves. He created the “Robert Smith” persona to help him elevate normal human feelings to the level of grand drama, and here he examines a love so powerful that he will swim across oceans to be reunited with his beloved. You can never say he doesn’t commit.

But beyond the absolutely swoon-worthy story, this song is a marvel of quiet confidence, a nearly 10-minute epic that ambles along at its own pace, with Smith in no hurry to drop the devastating chorus (“I will kiss you forever on nights like this”) until he’s good and ready.

22. “Play for Today” ( Seventeen Seconds , 1980)

Smith is the greatest pouter in music, and you can hear his rolled eyes and exasperated sighs in every second of this song. You can also hear post-punk slowly inch its way toward spawning goth as well.

21. “Doing the Unstuck” ( Wish , 1992)

Smith always has been careful not to let himself be hemmed in by other people’s idea of Robert Smith, once saying , “I could sit and write gloomy songs all day long, but I just don’t see the point.” On this jaunty slice of pop perfection, he gives a pep talk to the sort of mope that people might perceive him as, gently nudging them by singing, “let’s get happy” over guitars that might do the trick.

20. “Lullaby” ( Disintegration , 1989)

There’s always been a storybook, fairy-tale aspect to the Cure, and Smith often seems like he just walked out of Alice in Wonderland . But fairy tales are simply ways to approach darker feelings, and while whimsical on the surface, “Lullaby” is an elegant metaphor for the dark thoughts and personal demons that won’t give you a moment’s peace, buttressed by whispering synth lines and carefully plucked guitars that slowly move from soothing to unnerving as the nightmare intensifies.

Also, I imagine that the only reason this hasn’t appeared in a Spider-Man film yet is that, canonically, Peter Parker is not a cannibal.

19. “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” ( Boys Don’t Cry , 1980)

The way music works is that someone has an idea, and someone else builds on it. Everyone is allowed to borrow, and “authenticity” is a dicey concept.

That said, it is hilarious to hear Smith get all petty and sneer at all the post-punks come lately who are trying to bite his style.

18. “The Hanging Garden” ( Pornography, 1982)

Goth, as a subculture, was a reaction to Reagan- and Thatcher-era austerity and the looming sense that life would only get more dreadful for all but the rich. But the reason it has endured, to paraphrase the late journalist, playwright, and goth scholar Marc Spitz , is that it is a deeply practical approach to life, and not just because everyone looks hot in all black.

Once you embrace the darkness in life and accept that death is inevitable, you can shrug off the greater worries and go about enjoying your finite time. Perhaps by doing your favorite sway dances and enjoying absolutely badass anthems like “The Hanging Garden.” I don’t know what “The Hanging Garden” is, but I do know that the nearly tribal drumming makes it sound like a place of great portent, as well as a cool spot for teenagers to smoke cloves.

17. “Catch” ( Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me , 1987)

In which the Cure expertly captures the sensation of meeting someone you fall head over heels for right away, only for it to fizzle out before it even begins. The gentle violin sway conjures the hopeless, dizzy spell such an encounter can conjure, while Smith’s knowing tone recognizes that, later in life, you will look back and laugh at yourself, wistful but grateful you ever had such passions.

16. “Push” ( The Head on the Door , 1985)

Few can rival the Cure for bombastic intros. The genius of “Push” is that the Cure asked, “What if most of the song was a bombastic intro built around an insistent guitar progression?” Well, it turns out that would be awesome. The non-intro parts are pretty great as well.

15. “Let’s Go to Bed” (stand-alone single, 1982)

Goth isn’t given enough credit for being a horny subculture. (Goth culture and S&M culture aren’t synonymous, but there’s a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram.)

This was the first time Smith set aside abject misery for uncut lust. With playful keyboard whines and some slightly unnerving empty space, he makes his intentions clear with a pithiness Prince would appreciate (“I don’t care if you don’t”) and then wails like a man who really needs a little less talking, a little more something else.

14. “Fascination Street” ( Disintegration , 1989)

One of the oldest tropes in pop music is that night in the city is where and when it all happens. It’s where the danger, the sex, the thrills are.

The best example of this type of song is Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” but “Fascination Street” is certainly up there, with Smith making a night out looking for kicks with his mates feel like a journey into the darkness from which he might not return. As ever, credit to Gallup, who can make anything sound ominous.

13. “A Night Like This” ( The Head on the Door , 1985)

On one hand, sure, this portrayal of a romantic obsession verging on stalking, of an overpowering desire to have someone, is a bit problematic. The stalkee isn’t given much agency, I concede. And yes, it’s a good thing we’ve had a decade’s worth of social media conversations about some of the less savory aspects of the art we consume.

But let us now invite our friends nuance and artistic intent back into the chat.

Just as we acknowledge that, throughout cinematic history, most erotic thrillers were deeply flawed and often quite icky, there’s a reason many people find themselves missing them these days. That sense of danger and allure holds a power over us still, especially as popular culture continues to lose sight of true eroticism. And art, after all, is a place for artists and audiences to work through complex emotions and feelings we would never pursue in real life.

Which brings us back to “A Night Like This,” a song that sounds both seductive and dangerous, with Smith sounding equal parts desperate and deranged when he barks, “I’m coming to find you if it takes me all night,” unwilling to believe he can’t make it all right again, unwilling to believe they’re gone. You still might need a cigarette when it’s over.

12. “Pictures of You” ( Disintegration , 1989)

Do many of these songs remind you of … someone … from long ago? Certainly. Do we need to get into it here? Certainly not. Is this one of them? Certainly. Am I glad I’m not a teenager anymore? You bet. Does the epic sense of regret and longing, that desperate hope for one more chance, represented by desperately sad guitars and Smith’s defeated plea of “do-do-do-do,” still conjure something in me that’s still just a bit more than I can handle sometimes?

[ Starts sobbing uncontrollably. ]

11. “10:15 Saturday Night” ( Three Imaginary Boys , 1979)

Another all-powerful rock trope is the lament that there is nothing to do in your Podunk town and with your Podunk life, and everyone out there is having fun without you. It’s a terrifying feeling, to be young and to worry you are wasting your youth. It might even push you to form one of the greatest bands ever.

The Cure, being a bunch of teens from the small town of Crawley, was able to adroitly tap into this feeling in this, one of their opening salvos. The “drip, drip, drip” part is the sort of perfect detail a more experienced songwriter might feel a bit silly going for, even as it captures the sort of thing a bored mind might focus on to pass the time. And the Cure succeeds in making crushing ennui sound like a blast here, as in the best songs of this lineage.

10. “Lovesong” ( Disintegration , 1989)

Smith once said that “we’ll be mainstream when the mainstream accommodates us,” and he has a knack for making pop songs that win you over without seeming desperate for your approval. “Lovesong,” which hit no. 2 on the Billboard charts and upgraded the band to stadiums for a spell, didn’t do anything drastically un-Cure. It simply distilled the band down to its essence.

Famously written as a wedding gift for Poole, only to become a first-dance staple for thousands, the song is centered on as simple a promise as you can muster: “I will always love you.” Smith has never sounded more unguarded than he is here, and that’s what connected him to the entire world for a time. He sings with passion and faith, swearing he will always be true. But there’s a hint of sadness in his voice, as he knows full well that no couple can be together forever, at least not in this life.

9. “Friday I’m in Love” ( Wish , 1992)

I’m not saying Smith created poptimism, per se. But I am saying that he knew he could create head-rush pop anthems and they would enhance, not detract from, his artistry.

He once said , “‘Friday I’m in Love’ is a dumb pop song, but it’s quite excellent actually, just because it’s so absurd. It’s so out of character—very optimistic and really out there in happy land.” This is a pop classic only Smith would write, and not just because most songwriters would feel a bit self-conscious about the “Thursday, I don’t care about you” line.

Only someone who has plumbed the depths of despair that Smith has could so completely fling themselves in the polar opposite direction, eternally grateful to have made it out of the darkness and to have found a reason to never go back.

8. “A Forest” ( Seventeen Seconds , 1980)

Mediocrity borrows, genius steals.

I’m a professional, you know. To do my research, I spent time with the Cure catalog, watched all their live videos I could find, reread old profiles, and, of course, listened to both parts of The Ringer ’s Bandsplain episode devoted to the Cure, hosted by Yasi Salek and featuring Hanif Abdurraqib.

So I must concede that, for this particular entry, I could not top Salek’s description. So to quote the scholar:

“These fucking bass lines, bitch , that start coming on Seventeen Seconds ? So fucking good.”

7. “Boys Don’t Cry” ( Three Imaginary Boys , 1979)

In which Smith recreates masculinity itself in his image, offering a new, gentler, and more humane version for all to follow.

It’s one of the most vulnerable songs a man has ever written. He throws away macho rock orthodoxy like yesterday’s newspaper, a thing he has no need for. He’s proudly open with his feelings in a way few rock singers could match, then or now.

One of the most important things that the Cure helped popularize was the archetype of the weirdo who’s supremely comfortable in their skin. Smith rolls his eyes at anyone who doesn’t understand his makeup or overt emotionalism and is unbothered by anyone’s hang-ups, homophobia, and attachments to rigid gender roles. ( Gallup has said , “The most entertaining rumor I heard was that Robert and me were gay lovers.”)

The impact this has had on popular culture cannot be overstated; it’s offered comfort to thousands, has saved countless lives, and now appears to be the only reasonable way of being for enlightened people.

6. “A Letter to Elise” ( Wish , 1992)

[ Uncontrollable sobbing intensifies to the point where my neighbors check on me. ]

By 1992, Smith had married his longtime love and achieved pretty much anything he’d set out to accomplish. Based on “Friday I’m in Love,” he was in a better mood. But “better” sometimes means the pain isn’t resolved, just at bay. Or maybe it means you’re happy, but you still know your artistic strengths. Again, as long as you can still sell the drama, it’s not our business how “real” it all is.

Tapping into what he’s termed “that same core of despair that never goes away,” Smith delivered one of his best laments to a doomed romance, and one of his best self-recriminations, in “A Letter to Elise.” It’s one of the Cure’s most elegant compositions, from the devastating metaphors (“And every time I try to pick it up / Like falling sand / As fast as I pick it up / It runs away through my clutching hands”) to a bridge that builds until it threatens to block out the sun. And that’s the paradox of Smith: He sounds the most self-assured when he sounds the most dejected.

5. “Close to Me” (7-inch single mix version, The Head on the Door , 1985)

After the depths of the goth trilogy and the buoyancy of the pop single trilogy, The Head on the Door is where they put it all together, jelling into the band the world thinks of as the Cure. Darkness and light coexist on the same album (and sometimes the same song) just as they coexist within all of us. It’s also the album where Gallup returned after a brief spat and the lineup began to settle for a while.

Smith found a way to be clever, neurotic, and capricious here, self-aware and endlessly troubled by a love that never goes easily. (“I’ve made myself so sick / I wish I’d stayed / in bed today.”)

It’s one of the Cure’s best pop songs, gliding with an unceasing momentum and filled with the sort of idiosyncratic touches the band was becoming more comfortable with. (The xylophones! The horns!) By making romantic dysfunction so danceable, they began on the path to stardom.

4. “Plainsong” ( Disintegration , 1989)

While I am a man of Faith , I’m not sure whether I’m a man of faith. Maybe, maybe not. But I do think the intro of this song is what it would sound like if the heavens were to suddenly burst open, only for the seraphim to emerge, finally set order to things, and allow us to live in grace.

And that’s just the start. The song gets better from there as Smith strains to reach the divine and gets astonishingly close.

There’s not really a chorus, per se, but you don’t need one when you have continual cascades of slow-motion, radiant synth of such grandeur that Sofia Coppola plausibly used it to soundtrack the coronation of Louis XVI . (The best use of a Cure song in a film, though this is the funniest .)

The couple in the song is, maybe, watching it all come to a close. And they are at peace with that because they are together. Smith created a world and ended it in just over five minutes. Many operas have accomplished much less with much more time. Hell of a way to kick off Disintegration , the album on which the Cure perfected music.

3. “In Between Days” ( The Head on the Door , 1985)

[ Throws away entire box of tear-stained tissues. ]

“Yesterday I got so old / I felt like I could die.”

Smith was 26 when he wrote those lines. How ridiculous. How absurd. How … accurate a portrayal of the beginnings of what we now call a quarter-life crisis, that feeling that life is slipping away and you have nothing to hold on to.

Smith knows what he’s doing, and while he can find the fun in an emotional purging, he never lets things veer into camp. He’s too sincere and too good with heartbreaking lyrics and disarming mewls for that. He’s also able to pay off his striking opening lines with a follow-up that’s just as affecting: “Yesterday I got so scared / I shivered like a child.”

Pair it with the hardest but most jubilant jangle pop he ever strummed, and you have a song that brings seasoned Cure fans right back to their first heartbreaks and that will be there for new Cure converts just as soon as they need it.

2. “One Hundred Years” ( Pornography , 1982)

“The making of the album was incredibly demented,” Smith later said when reflecting on Pornography . “We didn’t sleep, which drives anyone mad, and we didn’t see anyone—it was an Us Against the World mentality, and nothing mattered but making the most extreme statement we could muster.”

Well, mission accomplished, my dudes.

The album, their fourth, was made during a difficult time for the band. Everyone was heavily using drugs and alcohol, and Smith entered the deepest depression of his life and decided he had to get the feelings out or else he’d become another rock star gone before their time.

Infamously starting with the line “It doesn’t matter if we all die,” the opener, “One Hundred Years,” is the most goth song on the most goth album by the most goth band. A dense barrage that keeps ratcheting up the tension until it reaches a brink-of-the-edge, this-could-really-go-either-way intensity that few bands could ever match, including, afterward, the Cure.

The coda offers no absolution, just Smith repeating “one after the other” endlessly, the sound of desperation or perhaps resignation.

The album was weirdly popular in England, and after this, Smith wisely knew it was time to change it up, lest he suffer diminishing returns and/or mental ruin.

1. “Just Like Heaven” ( Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me , 1987)

Of course this was going to be no. 1. I never considered otherwise. To pick something else would have been so contrary as to be juvenile.

It’s not just the Cure’s best song; it’s one of the best songs anyone has ever made, and the best song of the 1980s that wasn’t written by Prince.

Every second could not be made more perfect, from the ba-boom drum intro to the most delectable synthesizer purr ever recorded. Every time I see this band live, and I’m getting close to an even 10, I see couples dance (among other activities) when that piano line drops.

And the video! My God, this band never looked hotter. The image of Poole twirling in the ether forever cemented her mysterious lore among Cure fans, while the scene of Smith standing on a cliff, looking into the sea, his heart about to burst, placed him in the direct lineage of the Romantic poets he so loves.

Smith has said it’s about a perfect day with his wife that was worth endless hours of drudgery.

It’s also a song that proves, to its author and its fans, that it’s worth it to find a way out of the depths. It’s a song about how love is worth living for, great songs are worth everything, and some bands are worth making a part of your life forever.

An earlier version of this piece stated that the song “Catch” is on Wish . It’s on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me , from 1987.

Michael Tedder is a freelance journalist who has written for Esquire , MEL , Variety , Stereogum , and Playboy . His book, Top Eight: How MySpace Changed Music , will be published by Chicago Review Press on August 15, 2023, and is currently available for preorder .

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The Cure are a band formed in 1976 hailing from Crawley, West Sussex, in the United Kingdom. Fronted by lead singer and songwriter Robert Smith, they came from the post-punk scene of the early 80’s to become one of the biggest and most influential bands in modern rock.

When a band gets to be as truly worshipped as The Cure, it can be an interesting and slightly bizarre thing to look at their early days. A little bit like seeing your favourite actor wondering whether they’re going to go with white or brown bread in a local Tesco. Or an important politician spotted zoning out on public transport, it brings them back down to earth and reminds you that they’re not all-conquering, all-powerful cosmically divine extra-dimension visitors who know the secrets of the universe, but a guy from the Sussex suburbs who formed a band to play at a school concert.

They probably looked ridiculous at their first shows, and not in the awesome way. They probably wrote some godawful songs. Some punters probably watched an early incarnation of The Cure and thought, for good reason, that they were a bunch of no-hopers. Every band has those days and if they haven’t one should be very, very suspicious of them. What makes The Cure so special is that they absolutely had those days, but knowing about them doesn’t take the sheen off them at all. They’re still a vitally important band, influential to thousands of bands the world over and that’s enough to make them legends, before the image and before the imitators.

And it all began with a school concert. In April 1973, five students from Notre Dame Middle School in Crawley formed Obelisk, the first tentative musical project of one Mr Robert Smith, who was the bands pianist. Future Cure cohorts Mick Dempsey and Lol Tolhurst backed him up on guitar and percussion, respectively, but it wasn’t until 1976 that the trio began to take making music more seriously. The band was reshuffled to feature Smith on the guitar, Dempsey on bass and Tolhurst left the now renamed Malice, but it was only to last a year until their lead guitarist left as well.

The remaining members got Tolhurst back as their drummer and renamed themselves again.This time, they would be called Easy Cure. By September 1977, Smith took over lead vocals after several unsuccessful auditions and by the start of 1978, they had dropped the Easy from their name and had recorded their first demo tape. This tape found its way to Polydor Records scout Chris Parry, who was so taken with the band that he signed them to his own label Fiction in September of that very year. In a move that nobody would get away with now, their track “Killing An Arab” was released soon after as their very first single.

It was a move that gained as much acclaim as controversy, to the extent that a re-release of the single had to be packaged with a sticker on the cover denying its supposedly racist connotations. Thankfully, the bands energetic post-punk got more attention, and their hype was considerably heightened with a session on John Peel’s legendary Radio One show. By the following year, their debut album “Three Imaginary Boys”, was released, and as part of its promotion, the band embarked on their first major support tour opening for Siouxsie And The Banshees.

This was to be a major step forward for the band, as Smith was coaxed into playing guitar for The Banshees after their original axe-man left shortly before the tour. The experience of being a Banshee profoundly changed Smith’s attitude towards the music that his band played, and when before he was most influenced by The Buzzcocks and Elvis Costello, afterwards he wanted to match the power that he felt while playing Siouxsie’s music. The result was 1980’s “Seventeen Seconds” and arguably, that was when they became The Cure that we know today.

Since then, they’ve been most known for essentially creating Goth music with the aforementioned record, its follow up “Faith”, and 1982’s bleak masterpiece “Pornography”. However, after those records they released some of the most romantic, beautiful and downright succesful pop of the 1980’s and early 90’s, with albums like “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me”, “Wish” and “The Top” showing just what Smith could do with a lovelorn lyric and a truly gorgeous melody. It’s their mastery of these two extremes that really show why The Cure are as loved as they are. They exemplify the human condition, and reflect when one is ecstatic and when one is at their lowest with equal skill and sensitivity.

There’s no-one else like them, and it’ll be a while before we see their likes again. See this band as soon as possible.

Live reviews

Reviewing a show of one of your favorite Bands who have the distinction of being in your Top 5 (if not #1) live experiences of all time can be a bit daunting.

It can go a number of ways.

1. Another Great show as hoped.

2. Sub par and a let down.

3. The Band just "mails it in" (which is the worst).

The Cure, who have been around since 1976 (Easy Cure) and haven't toured the States anyway with a new album since 2008 are currently embarking on a substantial North American tour and with no new album I was really only expecting a "Greatest Hits" type show honestly? And given their Longevity and slew of "Hits" from the heyday of MTV I guess I couldn't blame them and I would have been satisfied more than likely?

Ah, but that was not the case in Boston (6-16-16) at Agganis Arena!

The Cure came out full throttle with a high energy level for what would turn out to be a marathon show of 3 hours which included.

Not 1. Not 2. Not even 3. But 4. Yes. 4 Encore Sets!!!

Were the standards there? Of course how can they not be.

"Inbetween Days", "Just Like Heaven", "Lovesong" "Let's Go To Bed", "Boys Don't Cry" etc etc etc

And all played with a kicked up, but not hurried, sense of urgency and excitement!

Mixed in though were surprising live Gems like:

"Burn" (1st The Crow soundtrack), "M", "Kyoto Song" and the surprising "Snakepit"!!

"Fascination Street" which has one the most perfect Bass lines ever IMO was a whirlwind of insanity as Simon Gallup just pushed the Band forward.

And the songs just kept coming one after the other while the crowd basked in Robert Smith's wonderfully childlike sense of wonder and emotion in his lyrics and vocals and understated guitar work.

Most Cure fans (me included) knew every single song played which is typical of The Cure fanbase.

But when they launched into the new "It Can Never Be the Same" with it's rumbling Bass line and heart felt lyrics to Robert Smith's Mother(?) I was amazed at how well it slid into this already fantastic set and really really really hope it gets a proper release soon, if it hasn't already and I have somehow missed it?

Robert Smith is an enigma of a front man. He demands your attention but. I don't believe, has never come to grips with his fans adulations and is still obviously shy individual. And I really don't think it's an act?

Simon Gallup is without doubt the energy of this Band still! He stalks the stage and never stops moving. All the while laying down a very unique Bass foundation that compliments Roberts Jangly sparse guitar style perfectly.

Simon does not get the recognition he deserves as a force on the Bass (along with John Taylor of Duran Duran) and if you play Bass you really should take a close listen to his work with The Cure.

Jason Cooper I think has finally come out from the shadow that was Boris Williams and seems comfortable in pushing his style now more in the drumming Dept. which I believe is another reason for the energy level of the Band live.

Roger O'Donnell is sublime on the keyboards and brings that soaring majestic sound needed for anything done from DISINTEGRATION while jumping right over to the nursery rhyme key tinkling of The Cure's early 80's Synth Pop era easily.

Reeves Gabrels who is the current 2nd guitarist in the ever rotating slot is a masterful musician in his own right (David Bowie folks) and honestly I was surprised at how long He has stayed with the Band? But He steps out very tastefully when required and ads his unique flair to the sound. I will admit to missing Porl Thompson who I just think was/ is the elusive component to the Band. But if you have to have Mr. Gabrels who am I to complain?.

Honestly this review could have been round up with one word: "EPIC"

But that, would be "mailing it in".

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I first saw the Cure in 1982 in this very same venue, the effectionatelg named by U.S. Muso's as the Hammy Odeon.

Tonight some 30 years later I'm back. I feel at home especially as I'm stranding and I'm where I should be.... Down the Front

Our evening starts with And Also The Trees a reformed eighties outfit who previously supported the Cure on their 1984 tour.

The thing about Robert smith is that he is a prolific song writer and the bands back catalogue is immense which results in us experiencing a three hour plus spectacular.

And what a treat. Hits rained down and more randomly than normal. Tracks from The Top album seemed dominate. Just like Heaven, Charlotte sometimes, Hundred Years, The End and of course the gems Primary, play for today and the classic A Forest.

Of course I'd liked more from Seventeen Seconds and Faith but that would have been greedy. There were plenty of folk here tonight who weren't born when these albums were released

With so much to play we were presented with four encores and finally at 11.15 it all ended with Boys Don't Cry.

It meant so much for me to have returned to this awesome venue to see my favourite band.... The place and the band that started me on my gig going journey

Cheers Robert.... Fantastic

The Cure are a special band and should be heard in a special environment, that is why I saw them at Red Rocks in Colorado. It was a cool night and the sun was sitting low in the sky. That famous colorful Colorado sky fell down across the stage.

The fans were are pretty relaxed and were mostly 25 plus in age. Everyone seemed to be poised for a night of great music. You could hear conversations coming from every direction, everyone hoping their favorite songs will be played.

Just as it was getting dark the band took the stage. Everyone stood and applauded Robert Smith as he paced across the stage and made his way to the microphone stand. As the band members struck a few random chords then the band jumped into “Just Like Heaven”. The frenzy only grew as the bad started without pause to play “Friday I’m In Love”. Everyone was having so much fun. The music sounded better then I have ever heard it before.

Robert Smith played an amazing set list of all the hits over the years. The band played all the old songs like “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Pictures of you” with a fresh take and with a new energy. This band has been around a while and still worth seeing live!

The Cure are legends and any band that will give you a 2 1/2 hour show deserves your respect. That being said this "greatest hits" + a few back-catalogue approach is what you'd expect from the Rolling Stones not from what is still an underground act. That in and by itself wouldn't even be that bad but aside from a few songs 39, A Night Like This, 100 Years sounded bland, uninspired and as though they were just going through the motions... Great light show, technical perfection but no soul! I've seen them twice in the 90's and came out of those shows thrilled, energized and inspired. Those were magical shows where the band managed to transform reality and all (the band included, to judge by their faces) came out of it exhausted and amazed, carried off as by some shamanistic ritual to dark and dangerous lands where we learned to overcome our fears and face the world around us with new hope. This wasn't one of those shows. This was Robert Smith giving his audience 30 of his best songs and not once making a spiritual connection with either the music or the crowd...

Obviously being way too young to remember The Cure the first time around (sort of, ish, ahem, etc), this was the first time seeing this bunch of post-punk proto-goths and inevitably they didn't disappoint.

Despite most of the band heading pretty swiftly towards free-bus-pass age, the gig show kicked along at a pace, with young Mr. Smith barely pausing for breath as they band kicked on through a back catalogue spanning 30+ years.

Having spent the past few weeks attempting to brush up on my Cure knowledge (via Spotify) I can gladly add this band to an ever-growing list of "if you thought the studio version was good...", as tracks like Lullaby, Lovecats and Friday all sounded immense performed live.

Main issue of the night was technical; the lack of big screens at Wembley Arena means if you're right at the back, the band are mere specks on the stage up front. The lighting design was beautifully done though, and went some way to compensate for the lack of being able to see Robert Smith gurning earnestly into the microphone.

Two review, first for The Cure. It was a wonderful show! They were willing to perform hits along with other unknown songs and sounded great at doing it. They had a half and half crowd, some diehard fans and some who thought they were bigger fans than they actually were. With it being May in Pac NW the temperature dropped quickly freezing alot of people enough to say they had seen enough. This wasnt The band's fault for lack of inspired fans. They were everything I expected from a goth rock band from the late 70s and 80s. About the venue: I love the venue as well! We have been living in Portland for 5 years but have never made a point to catch a show in the Washington Amphitheater. Wow! We felt like we were home in the south. Nice concert under the stars and the price was a great as well, considering the crappy prices shows in Portland go for. We will be going back to Sunlight Supply in August.

Buon concerto del gruppo, rovinato dalla pessima acustica del Mediolanum Forum.

L'esecuzione è stata quasi impeccabile, l'interazione col pubblico buona (Robert Smith ha persino azzardato un "Grazie mille", unica ed acclamatissima frase che il pubblico ha capito), alcune canzoni elegantemente riarrangiate.

La qualità sonora, inizialmente pessima (purtroppo tale è rimasta per tutta l'esibizione dei Twilight Sad che aprivano il concerto), è migliorata durante l'esibizione grazie al lavoro ingrato dei fonici e al fatto che gradualmente le chitarre elettriche distorte sono state sostituite con le acustiche o con suoni più docili.

Penso che sia l'ultimo concerto che andrò a vedere al Mediolanum Forum, che è vergognosamente inadatto ad ospitare concerti rock dal punto di vista acustico (peccato, perché dal punto di vista logistico non è male). Ridateci l'arena!

What a concert!

We managed to get front row side view, only a few meters from the stage.

I'd seen them in 1985 in Madrid, 2008 in Melbourne and now in Milan. Awesome songs, still as good as always. A massive repertoire to choose from, but they performed most of their hits, plus a new one, It Can Never Be The Same. Robert as grand as always, he really enjoyed the show.

Simon at his best, he inspired me when I was 17 to play bass guitar, his usual moving around the stage with his bass at knee level!

I missed Porl, though, he has always been the colourful note at the right end of the stage!

Roger as sculptural as always in front of the keyboards and Jason performing at his best.

A magnificent show, what can I say.

I hope to see them again in a couple of years!

The Cure - Barcelona, Palau Sant Jordi. November 26th 2016

My 5th Cure concert, and probably the best I've seen. No doubt it was far better than the last one, also in Barcelona in 2008 (without Roger O'Donnell on keys)

The band is great with Reeves Gabrels and Roger. Jason Cooper sounds better than ever on drums and Simon's bass is terrific.

Missed some gems such as Plainsong, Jupiter Crash, Want, Letter to Elise, but setlist was OK, 32 songs, focusing on The Head on the Door (1985) + Disintegration (89) + Kiss Me (87).

1 great unreleased song: It Can Never Be The Same on 1st encore.

Robert's voice was fine, powerful and clean. Athmosphere was good, proactive and the pop songs encouraged fans to sing along.

Looking fw to a new tour and maybe new album?

3 (three) hours of pure pleasure. 31 songs.

They sang as if they were recording the original albuns. Perfect!

Great quality and performance.

Great respect for the fans, as I never saw.

Best was not possible, im glad I went to this concert. Thank you CURE!

In Between Days

Pictures of You

The Hungry Ghost

A Night Like This

Shake Dog Shake

The Caterpillar

From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea

One Hundred Years

Step Into the Light

Play for Today

Fascination Street

Friday I'm in Love

Just Like Heaven

Boys Don't Cry

Hot Hot Hot!!!

Let's Go to Bed

Close to Me

Why Can't I Be You?

Videos (15)

Photos (125)

Posters (224)

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It all started in 1976 as Easy Cure, formed by Robert Smith (vocals, guitar) along with schoolmates Michael Dempsey (bass), Lol Tolhurst (drums) and local guitar hero Porl Thompson. They began writing and demoing their own songs almost immediately, playing throughout 1977 in Southern England to an ever growing army of fans. In 1978 the 'Easy' was dropped, along with Porl, and an eager trio now known simply as The Cure were quickly signed to Chris Parry's new Fiction label.

In May 1979 their debut album Three Imaginary Boys was released to great acclaim, and as the band toured extensively around the UK, the singles “Boys Don't Cry” and “Jumping Someone Else's Train” were released.

Michael left the band at the end of the year, and Simon Gallup (bass) and Matthieu Hartley (keyboards) joined. In early 1980 the Cure quartet embarked on an exploration of the darker side of Robert's song writing, and emerged with the minimalist classic album Seventeen Seconds, along with their first bona-fide 'hit single' “A Forest.”

After an intense world tour Matthieu left the group, and in early 1981 the trio recorded an album of mournful atmospheric soundscapes entitled Faith, which included another successful single in “Primary.” The band then set out on a second global trek, named 'The Picture Tour', during which they released the non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes.”

In 1982 The Cure went back into the studio, and their increasingly ugly fascination with despair and decay culminated in the unrelenting sonic attack of the Pornography album. An intensely volatile tour ensued, and the single “The Hanging Garden” was released just as Simon left the band.

After pushing the limits of excess, Robert felt he had to change things, and did so by 'going pop' again. Rejuvenated, the Cure duo released their first real dance single, the cheesy “Let's Go To Bed,” and during the making of the accompanying video forged a colourful and lasting relationship with director Tim Pope.

The band continued into 1983 with the groovy electronic dance of “The Walk,” followed by the demented cartoon jazz of “The Lovecats.” All 3 singles and accompanying B-sides were then compiled and re-released as the Japanese Whispers album.

In 1984 The Top album was released, a strange hallucinogenic mix, which contained the infectiously psychedelic single “The Caterpillar.” The world Top Tour saw the band expand to a quintet, with the addition of Andy Anderson (drums) and Phil Thornalley (bass), and the return of Porl Thompson (guitar).

The new Cure sound was captured live for the album Concert. Andy and Phil left soon after the end of the tour, and were replaced by Boris Williams (drums) and further returnee Simon Gallup (bass).

This new incarnation started work on 1985's The Head On The Door album with a very real sense of 'something happening'... The vibrant hit single “Inbetween Days” was followed up by “Close To Me,” and the ensuing world tour paved the way for the massive success of the singles collection album Standing On A Beach in 1986. That summer saw the band headline the Glastonbury Festival for the first time, and a year of extensive gigs and festivals was crowned by Tim Pope's live concert cinema film The Cure In Orange.

In 1987 The Cure brought out Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, an immense double album of extreme and extraordinary stylistic range, and with the arrival of Roger O'Donnell on keyboards the Cure sextet traveled the world with 'The Kissing Tour', enjoying 4 more hit singles along the way.

The wonderfully atmospheric Disintegration album was demoed in 1988 and released in 1989, and despite being a work of powerful brooding grandeur, it too gave rise to 4 hit singles. The awesome 'Prayer Tour' that followed, with the band back down to a quintet following the departure of Lol Tolhurst, included some of The Cure's best performances to date, and was captured live for the album Entreat.

In early 1990 Roger O'Donnell left the group, and was replaced by long-time band friend Perry Bamonte, just in time for a series of headlining European festival shows that included the band's second Glastonbury. The album Mixed Up was released, supported by the re-mixed singles “Never Enough,” “Close To Me” and “A Forest,” and in 1991 The Cure at last won some long overdue 'home recognition' with a Brit Award for 'Best British Group'.

In 1992 they produced Wish, a richly diverse multi-faceted guitar driven album hailed by some as their best work to date. It spawned 3 fabulous hit singles, and the glorious 'Wish Tour' that followed was a worldwide sell-out. The sheer power of the shows inspired the release of two live works in 1993, the album and concert cinema film Show and the more fan oriented Paris album. Immediately after the tour ended, guitarist Porl Thompson left the band again (this time with a smile!), and The Cure headlined the XFM 'Great Xpectations' Show in London's Finsbury Park as a quartet. The band also contributed ”Burn” to the film ‘The Crow’ and covered “Purple Haze” for the Hendrix tribute album 'Stone Free'.

In 1994 Boris Williams decided to move on, and in early 1995 Jason Cooper took up residency behind the drum kit, with Roger O'Donnell rejoining once more on keyboards. Work on the next album was interspersed with recording “Dredd Song” for the film ‘Judge Dredd’, a cover of Bowie's “Young Americans” for an XFM album, and headlining several major European festivals, including the 25th Glastonbury. The Wild Mood Swings album was released in 1996, and went straight into almost every top ten around the world. The Cure hit the road once more with 'The Swing Tour', their longest to date, releasing 4 singles along the way.

Galore, the follow up singles and video compilation to Standing On A Beach, which included the new single "Wrong Number", a full on dance epic made in collaboration with Bowie's guitarist Reeves Gabrels, was released in 1997, after which work took place in 1998 on a variety of projects, including “More than This” for the ‘X Files’ album, and a memorable appearance by Robert in the TV cartoon show ‘South Park’! In 1999 the band completed the recording and mixing of what many regarded as their best studio album so far, the ‘Grammy Nominated’ Bloodflowers.

With it's release in 2000 the band set off on the massive world-wide 'Dream Tour' - playing to more than a million people in 9 months.

2001 saw the long awaited release of the Cure's Greatest Hits album, which featured all the band's biggest selling singles along with 2 new songs, the elegiac “Cut Here” and the ebullient “Just Say Yes,” a duet with Saffron. This year also saw the end of the group's relationship with Fiction Records, the label they had been instrumental in starting 23 years before.

In 2003 another chapter of The Cure story opened, the band signing a global album deal with the Geffen label. 2004 saw the Fiction release of Join the Dots, a 4cd Box set compiled by Robert of all the B-sides and Rarities, followed by the widely acclaimed new album The Cure, co-produced with the renowned Ross Robinson. 3 singles, “The End Of The World”, “alt.end” and “Taking Off” all hit big, and another hugely successful world tour ensued, with the 23 date North American 'Curiosa Festival' leg especially notable for seeing the band supported by a number of hand picked younger bands including Interpol, Mogwai, The Rapture and Muse.

The year ended with an MTV Icon Award presented at a special televised London show.

In 2005 Perry Bamonte and Roger O’Donnell left the band and Porl Thompson joined for a third time. The quartet’s debut show was headlining Live 8 Paris, followed by a number of other summer European Festivals. The first four Cure albums (Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography) were re-released, with Robert providing 'rarities' for Deluxe Edition extras CD's, as part of an ongoing campaign to re-master and re-issue all the Cure albums. Immediately after closing a week of Teenage Cancer Trust Shows at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2006, the band started recording their 13th studio album, breaking off in June to allow Robert to work on a live DVD. In August the second set of re-releases (The Top, The Head On The Door, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, along with 1983’s Glove album Blue Sunshine) was released, each album a 2CD Deluxe Edition. In November Festival 2005, a 155 minute 5.1 DVD comprising a 30 song selection of live performances captured the previous summer by a mix of fans, crew and ‘on-the-night-big-screen cameras’, was put out.

Spring 2007 saw The Cure headline the Miami Ultra Music Festival before heading back into the studio to continue work on new songs. The 11 show Australasian leg of 'The 4Tour' kicked off in July with a headline slot at the Fuji Rock Festival (the band’s first performance in Japan since 1984!), before moving on through Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. In October the band headlined the San Francisco Download Festival, before playing 3 wild nights in Mexico City at the Palacio de los Deportes, followed by an outstanding performance at the MTV Latin America Awards.

In October, 2 weeks prior to release, the new album 4:13 Dream was performed in its 13 song entirety at a live broadcast MTV event in the Piazza San Giovanni in Rome before an estimated crowd of 75,000 and a TV audience of 10 million!

The reaction to the event was awesome, with many critics and fans acclaiming the band's 13th studio album as a bona fide classic. The Cure finished the year in LA, playing a legendary 'Myspace Secret Show' at the Troubadour, followed by a memorable closing set at KROQ's 'Almost Acoustic Christmas'.

February 2009 saw the band celebrating their NME 'Godlike Genius' Award with two rousing shows performed at the Brixton Academy and the O2 Arena, followed in March by yet another visit to the west coast of America for an intimate performance at the Las Vegas Pearl Theatre, and a stirringly defiant broken-handed headline slot at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival! Porl Thompson left the band for the last time, and the rest of the year was taken up with a number of unusual collaborations, personal projects and work on restoring, transferring and digitizing the entire back catalogue. In May 2010 a re-mastered Disintegration was re-released, Robert once again providing 'rarities' for a Deluxe Edition extras CD, as well as new mixes of the whole album played live in London 1989, released as Entreat Plus. More unusual collaborations, personal projects and continuing work on restoring, transferring and digitizing filled the remainder of the year...

May 2011 saw the band fly to Australia to play two nights at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Vivid Festival. Initially planned to mark the 30th anniversary of the Faith album, the Reflections show did far more. First a Cure trio of Robert, Simon and Jason performed the Three Imaginary Boys album, then Roger O'Donnell rejoined the band and The Cure quartet played the Seventeen Seconds album, and finally Lol Tolhurst stepped back onstage with the band for the first time in 23 years to perform Faith and assorted B-sides and singles. Both extraordinary nights were filmed with a future DVD release in mind...

In September The Cure quartet headlined Bestival, a unique 150 minute performance filmed and broadcast live in 3D, and released as a charity CD Bestival Live 2011, and in November the band, once again abetted by Lol, played 7 more sold-out Reflections shows - 1 in the Royal Albert Hall, 3 in the Pantages Theatre LA and 3 in the Beacon Theatre NYC.

In May 2012 renowned guitarist Reeves Gabrels joined The Cure in time for 'Summercure 2012', a run of 19 major European summer festival headline spots, starting at Pinkpop and ending at Eire's Electric Picnic, including epic sets at Roskilde, Werchter, Hurricane, the bands first ever show in Russia at the Maxidrom Festival, Les Eurockeenes, Vieilles Charrues, Paleo and Reading & Leeds along the way. All the shows were filmed in various formats... "with a future DVD release in mind"!

April 2013 saw The Cure flying out to Rio de Janeiro for the first show of a stadium tour of Latin America, with debut performances in Paraguay, Chile, Peru and Colombia, a return to Buenos Aires for the first time in 26 years and a truly monumental final 50 song 257 minute Mexican concert to celebrate Robert's birthday, as a 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocked the Foro Sol around them! All 9 shows were filmed by Tim Pope... In July the band set off on a 13 day trip around the world billed as 'The Great Circle Tour', headlining South Korea's Ansan Rock, Japan's Fuji Rock, Chicago's Lollapalooza and Canada's Osheaga festivals, via another inaugural show in Honolulu, Hawaii! In October the band returned to the USA to close out two consecutive Saturday nights at the Austin City Limits festival, playing in Monterrey and El Paso in between days... In November The Cure played their final concert of the year, a stirring final appearance at New Orleans infamous Voodoo festival...

In March 2014 The Cure played two colossal nights at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust, and in May they travelled back to the USA to headline the Bottlerock Napa Valley Festival. In September they headlined the North American Riot Festivals in Toronto, Chicago and Denver, and in December the band made surprise appearances at both nights of Brian Cox and Robin Inces 'Christmas Compendium of Reason' shows at the Eventim London Apollo, before playing three magical 'Top heavy' concerts of their own in the same venue. 2015 saw another strange assortment of personal projects, unexpected collaborations and ongoing ventures...

After a year away from live performance, the band came back with a bang - 'The Cure World Tour 2016'!!! Starting in May with a couple of nights at the New Orleans Lakefront Arena, with support from The Twilight Sad the band played 87 different songs for more than a million people at 76 shows in 22 countries, never playing the same setlist twice!

Highlights included three phenomenal concerts at The Hollywood Bowl, three more at Madison Square Garden, another riotous trip ‘Down Under’, a stomping return to Bestival IOW, all crowned by a glorious grand finale: three December nights at the SSE Arena Wembley London, the band playing music for more than 9 delirious hours!

2017 was spent remixing/remastering outstanding back catalogue albums, as well as writing and demoing new songs, and 2018 continued in the same vein. In April a re-mastered Mixed Up was re-released, Robert once again providing 'rarities' for the Deluxe Edition extras CD in the form of Torn Down, a collection of 16 brand new remixes. June saw Robert Smith’s Meltdown - the 25th iteration of the world renowned Festival - a 10 day 90 band spectacular spread across 6 venues at London’s Southbank Centre, climaxing in the Royal festival Hall with a unique appearance by The Cure (as ‘CURÆTION-25’) performing ‘From There To Here And Back Again’ - a ‘concept set’ showcasing 2 tracks from every one of The Cure’s studio albums, as well as a couple of as yet unreleased songs. In July the band headlined a very special anniversary event in front of a 65,000 capacity crowd in London’s Hyde Park, celebrating almost to the day the 40th anniversary of their first ever concert as The Cure. It was an amazing experience, and generally acclaimed as one of the best shows the band had ever played. Once again the performances were filmed in various formats, with editing and mixing taking place throughout the rest of the year.

In February 2019 The Cure went into Rockfield Studios to record 13 new songs and rehearse for what was destined to be a very intense year. In March the band performed in South Africa for the very first time, followed by a trip to the Barclays Centre NYC where they were introduced by Trent Reznor and finally inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame! May saw The Cure in Australia performing a 30th Anniversary Disintegration show over 5 nights at the Sydney Opera House, and in June the band commenced a 3 month run of 25 Festival headlines, including Pinkpop, Roskilde, Werchter, Rock en Seine and Fuji (with Simon Gallup’s son Eden on bass), as well as first time performances in Croatia, Serbia and Romania, a record equalling 4th time at Glastonbury, and a final epic show at the Cure curated Pasadena Daydream Festival. In September the band went back into Rockfield Studios to record another 7 new songs, and October saw them return to the Americas for another 2 headline appearances at the Austin City Limits Festival (the second with Eden Gallup again on bass), the shows bracketing a monumental 36 song 3 hour epic at a sold out Foro Sol in Mexico City. October also saw the 2018 concerts, ‘Curætion-25’ and ‘Anniversary’ released together as 40 Live in cinemas and various formats around the world. In recognition of the band’s amazing run of shows the previous Summer, February 2020 saw The Cure winning Best Festival Headliner at the NME awards in London, and in March… Covid! The rest of a very hot and very weird year was spent on more unusual collaborations, personal projects and continuing work on new songs, with 2021 continuing along the same lines...

In September 2022 the band reconvened for rehearsals, and set off in October for the 10 week European leg of their Shows Of A Lost World Tour, with support once again from The Twilight Sad. Returning after 17 years, Perry Bamonte rejoined The Cure on guitar and keyboards for all 46 sold out concerts, culminating in another 3 fabulous nights at SSE Arena Wembley London. In May 2023 The Cure embark on the North American leg of their Shows Of A Lost World Tour…

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