I went to the Curiosa Festival yesterday which, with the weather being as unseasonable as it has been, really attests to my respect for the Cure. I want to get that off the bat right now.
It took 2 hours to drive from Roscoe Village to the Tweeter Center. rock. We’re cold, and damp, and have to walk all the way back to the car after arriving at the gate because “umbrellas and other missle like objects” are not allowed inside the Tweeter Center. damn. In between bands, you can text message your own personal shout out to the big ass mega screens throughout the theatre. We text “$9 Coronas suck my ass”. And then wonder why it is never shown.
Interpol rocked so hard my head fell off. Easily one of the best live bands I have ever seen EVER. But we got robbed and they only played a quick 8 song set, no encore. So anticlimactic.
The Cure finally takes the stage in a weird spectacle of pink and purple and glittery weird christmas lights, prompting my sister to say “The stage looks like a Barbie”.
Let me preface what I am about to say by saying this. I really like the Cure. At one point or another in my life I have owned all their albums either on CD or cassette (!). They have never really made a bad song (“Wrong Number” excepted). But they spent the first half of their set playing highly mediocre songs. I was cold and cranky, and Robert Smith looked very old and bloated. Then they did a wam bam of “Lovesong”, “Catch”, “Just Like Heaven”, and “Pictures of You”. And had at least 3 songs left after that.
So we left. We heard all the songs we wanted to hear, knowing the chances that they would play “A Forest” or “Killing an Arab” were slim, and decided to beat the traffic home. In the car, we both secretly felt that Interpol earned our $15 much more than the Cure did.