Cure - Royal Albert Hall, London, 1/4/2006

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 22 / 3 / 2006

intro

In one of their now increasingly rare performances, Anthony Strutt watches the Cure play a fantastic across-the-eras three hour set of both hits and obscurities at a Teenage Cancer Trust charity concert in London's Albert Hall

The Cure hardly play at all these days, so, as this was April Fools' Day, they had to say on their offical website that this is serious, guys. This Saturday show was the final night of Roger Daltrey's Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the massive but homely Royal Albert Hall. Before we got there everyone went to a small local pub for a now traditional Cure drink. Once we got past the bag search we found all our seats, and saw film talks by the owner of Gibson guitars , a film on teenage cancer which was very sad, and had a proper talk by promoter and mega rich dude, Harvey Goldsmith, and Roger Daltrey himself, whom now in 60's looked great and much better than in the Who heyday. The Cure came on shortly after 8.05pm and played till 11.10pm, playing an amazing 38 songs, of which a lot were extended versions. Most eras of the band's music were played, including a lot of early songs that have been missing from the band's live set in the last 10 years. This was the first show here since guitarist, Perry Bamonte, and keyboardist Roger O' Donnell left the group last year. The Cure now consists as ever of Robert Smith on vocals and Simon Gallup on bass ; Jason Cooper on drums and Porl Thompson on guitars. Porl has rejoined the band for the third time and is Robert's brother-in-law, He was in the Easy Cure, the first incarnation of the Cure, back in 1976. With no keyboards this time, it was a night of guitar-based the Cure. Several people stated they missed the keyboard sound, but I really didn't notice myself. Robert was fairly quiet and only spoke a few times, but with a set as strong and as long as this it didn't really matter. Set List : Open Fascination Street Alt.End The Blood A Night Like This It's the End(of the World) Play for Today If Only Tonight We Could Sleep The Kiss Shake Dog Shake Us or Them Never Enough Signal to Noise The Figurehead A Strange Day Push Inbetween Days Just Like Heaven From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea At Night Drowning Man M The Baby Screams 100 Years Shiver and Shake End. First Encore : Lullaby Hot, Hot, Hot Let's Go to Bed Friday I'm in Love Why Can't I Be You. Second Encore : 3 imaginary boys Fire in Cairo Grinding Halt 10:15 Saturday Night Killing An Arab 3rd Encore : Boys Don't Cry A Forest

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