No, it’s not all that surprising, of course. Robert Smith has often announceda new album by The Cure in recent years, after which the fans could sit in anendless waiting room in vain. Yet. This time even a title was released, SongsFrom The Lost World , as well as the length of the record (67 minutes) and atimeline when it would be released (autumn 2022). It is now the end ofNovember, but a new Cure record is not (yet) in sight. So are we in it again?The still immense following that turns the Ziggo Dome black to the brimtonight will be the worst. They are treated to a tailored cross-section of TheCure’s rich oeuvre and are happy that their heroes can be admired again onDutch soil three years after Pinkpop.
Photography Anne-Marie van Rijn
The setup of two concert parts of 67 minutes each (the new album and thehits), announced earlier in a roaring press release, has now been thrown intothe trash, knows the avid fan who thoroughly analyzed the concerts prior totonight. The The Lost World set list leans mainly on the heyday in theeighties (19 of the 28 songs date from that decade) and can be divided into asomewhat heavier first part and a hit-laden final shot. And yes, there is alsoroom for a handful of new songs. In fact, after we have listened to rain soundfor half an hour, the hall lights have dimmed and Robert Smith – by way ofgreeting – has walked across the entire width of the Ziggo stage and has beenapplauded extensively, The Cure kicks right away. off with a song from theintended new album.
And that bodes well. Alone is a stately lingering mourning symphony as onlySmith can write it. ‘This is the end of every song that we sing. The fireburned out to ash and the stars grown dim with tears’, it sounds as desperateas it is familiar. A gentle breeze full of melancholy blows over 17,000 headsand we’re off. Enchanted by a voice and music from a distant past that, aboveall, remain timeless and completely unique.
It’s remarkable how boyish Smith is at 63e still sounds. Close your eyes_Pictures Of You_ or the equally great, bittersweet love song A Night LikeThis and you imagine yourself back in the eighties or nineties. There is nota single wear on the vocal cords of Polletje Piekhaar, even though not alloutbursts are as fierce as before. It is all intrusive. The Figurehead ofdoom plate Pornography goes to the bone despite all its indefinableminimalism and it floats on oriental keyboards AtNight has a heavilydistorted bass sound enough to send shivers down your spine. Smith himselfacts at the top of his abilities during the psychedelic rock trip Shake DogShake that completely blows the socks off the room.
Besides Smith, bassist Simon Gallup is the undisputed cornerstone on which TheCure’s sound is propped up. Floating across the stage like a witch on abroomstick, Gallup’s angular playing lays the foundations for both amelancholy miniature and A Strange Day played as a more uptempo pop songlike Push. Gallup is the constant factor around which Smith and masterguitarist Reeves can freak Gabrels at regular intervals. The latter gets andtakes the leading role, among other things, on the brand new End song a ten-minute droning death march on which Gabrels rages more and more possessivelyand harks back to the years when he accompanied David Bowie in an inimitableway.
End song is the appropriate conclusion to the first hour and a half in whichthe Ziggo is regularly dragged into fathomless depths, sometimes threateningto sink into the quicksand (the somewhat lifeless newcomer A Fragile Thing )but in the end always just in time by an audience favorite – an exuberantlysung along Play For Today or the monumental evergreen AForest – is pulledout of the pit.
Many songs follow in the encores Disintegration the last, strong album fromthe eighties, and a moving homage ( I Can Never Say Goodbye ) to Smith’sdeceased brother to whom the singer dedicates the song. It is the sad preludeto a finale in which the emphasis shifts to the most exuberant hits from theoeuvre. Close To Me , In Between Days , Just Like Heaven and the finalsignpost Boys Don ‘t Cry let the Ziggo roar and jump along en masse one moretime. For a moment we dance again at a school party from thirty years ago,until after two hours and three quarters of an hour the room light comes onand puts an end to all illusions.