Before I'm off to Nashville this weekend...

Last night, S. and I saw The Cure. I had never seen The Cure and thought it might be a good opportunity to catch them live. When I arrived at Bricco, a clam pizza was already ordered for me. Hey, I have “the gout”. So, I really didn’t eat much of it. Two of her friends joined us and then it was off to the show.

The Venue: The Bart. I typically see a show at CSU’s Wolstein Center once or twice a year. This time, it was not General Admission on the floor, but Reserved seating. They saw the arena in half for these shows and it does make it a bit more intimate for an arena type of show.

The Tickets: Our tickets were slated to be in Row A (six rows up), a few sections down, left side of the stage. However, the previously mentioned friends had floor seats and asked us to join them. Not sure how that was going to happen, given that they had only two tickets. But I gladly entered the world of scofflaws and passed through some lax security to get on the floor. Their seats were in the 8th row and there were three empty seats in Row 7 on the end that we grabbed. Oh, my Spider Sense was up and I was ready to throw down a couple of times to keep the seats, but they were false alarms. So, the Seat Improvement Plan worked.

The Crowd: Pretty small crowd. Only about 4,000 people showed up and there were only a handful of people in the uppers. Not sure if those were sold or if they moved up there. I can’t figure out if it’s that no one likes The Cure anymore, the economy, or the threat of people offing themselves listening to their music that prevented people from attending.

Thankfully, no one offed themselves. Stood the entire time with not much rowdiness happening. Fairly tame crowd.

Opening Act: The opening act was 65daysofstatic. Did not arrive in time to see them and failed to ask anyone about their performance.

The Sound: Surprisingly good. Robert Smith’s voice was really good, I’d even suggest shockingly so. But I thought musically, it sounded superb. I sense a major difference in seeing shows at The Bart, as opposed to Quicken Loans Arena.

And there was really very little stage banter throughout. Robert Smith offered some thanks on occasion, and introduced a few songs. Other than that, not much. I think I may have even seen him smile once or twice. Could have been a grimace or he may have been constipated for all I know.

The Stage: The setup included a large screen in the back for some video effects. Mostly graphics in nature. Although I saw some pictures during one song and a bullet train zipping along on "Jumping Someone Else's Train". There were strobes for all of the Japanese cartoon watchers in attendance. Those were slightly annoying, but nothing major. Other lighting was fairly normal.

The extremely weird-looking Porl Thompson was on the left side of the stage on guitar. I am grateful I didn’t wear my original outfit, because Thompson stole it. Mesh shirt, vinyl pants, bat makeup over his eyes, etc. Whew! Smith was in the middle with a black buttondown long sleeve shirt and camo pants. Simon Gallup, looking like Joe Strummer, was on bass on the right. Drummer Jason Cooper on a tower in the back. No keyboards.

Fun facts to know and tell: I read that Robert Smith wears MAC lipstick shade Ruby Woo. I have no idea what that means.

Also, The Cure’s new album drops in September. But they have been releasing a single every few weeks or so in the ramp up to the release date.

The Music: Kind of a weird vibe with this show. As I said, vocally, Smith sounded great. Musically, it was a top-notch effort. But quite frankly, the show clocked in at three hours and by the end, I was kind of wishing it was over.

Setlist:

"Open"
"Fascination Street"
"A Night Like This"
"The End of the World"
"Lovesong"
"Want"
"Pictures of You"
"Lullaby"
"The Perfect Boy"
"From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea"
"Kyoto Song"
"Hot Hot Hot"
"The Only One"
"Charlotte Sometimes"
"Torture"
"Sleep When I'm Dead"
"Push"
"Inbetween Days"
"Just Like Heaven"
"Primary"
"Us or Them"
"Never Enough"
"Wrong Number"
"One Hundred Years"
"End"

Encore:

"At Night"
"M"
"Play For Today"
"A Forest"

Second Encore:

"Three Imaginary Boys"
"Fire In Cairo"
"Boys Don't Cry"
"Jumping Someone Else's Train"
"Grinding Halt"
"10:15 Saturday Night"
"Killing an Arab"

There you have it. When you decide to play 36 songs, there is a sense of rummaging through the songbook and picking some real obscurities along with the more well-known tunes. And then there is mixing in the new stuff. There is bound to be bathroom break songs and some other filler. I can’t recall the last concert I saw where the band played 36 tunes.

But there was no "Why Can't I Be You?", "Let's Go To Bed", "The Lovecats" or "Friday I'm In Love". Maybe those are too uptempo. Overall, I’m glad I went. But they could have easily trimmed 10 songs and 45 minutes from the show.

Meal of Links

14 songs you should not play in a bar. ABBA, but not Three Dog Night, make the list.

Many thoughts on tequila. Shots no, but I do like the occasional margarita.

The best of new music in 2008. Hey, Los Campesinos! made it. I really like it, even with extended intro.

Simply put. How to nap. "Take Sominex tonight and sleep..."

Exercise Yard

So sad that Portugal lost today at Euro 2008.






























You can never underestimate the Germans. They beat Big Phil, who's on his way to coach Chelsea, and Portugal today, 3-2.

The Germans are always tough, and this is the best they played, so far. They might be re-installed as the favorites.

Visitor

17 Across: Droll ESPN personality (10 letters) Answer: Kenny Mayne