So we got to the venue and immediately felt better about the fact that our almost backs-to-the wall tickets were as expensive as front row seats - the sightlines at the Patriot Center are pretty good, and it's fairly small, as arenas go.
65daysofstatic came on a little before eight. These guys are one of my favorite new bands, and definitely worth checking out if you're into instrumental/post-rock/electronica type stuff. They put on a really good show, but I can't help feeling that I would've enjoyed them a lot more at a venue like Black Cat instead of in a (then) half-full giant metal shed of people who didn't give a shit and kept talking through their entire set. If you just don't care about the opening band, make like the other half in the crowd and come after them, please? 65 played for half an hour, and it felt like it was over before it even started.
The lights went down again at nine, as the giant screens onstage filled up with stars. The chimes started, which settled the "will they open with Plainsong or Open?" question. I'm glad it was Plainsong - very chill, beautiful and a perfect way to start the night.
The Cure are touring without a keyboard player, but it became clear pretty quickly that this wasn't a big deal. Everything was reworked pretty well for guitars, though a couple of songs in the second encore had keys on a backing tracks. The only songs I felt were crying out to get their keyboards back were Wrong Number and Lovesong. Even Lullaby sounded fine without them.
For me, the highlights of the main set were Pictures of You, Disintegration, and most especially FROM THE EDGE OF THE DEEP GREEN SEA. It's my favorite Cure song by a wide margin, and I would've paid my seventy bucks over again just for those eight minutes. The fact that Porl Thompson was having guitar problems and had to switch guitars in the quiet part, that the asshole three seats down left loudly to get more beer and the middle of the song, and that the ending got a little messed up somehow didn't really change that. It was absolutely breathtaking.
It felt like the band was about done after Just Like Heaven, but man, they just kept going. Primary, the only song they played from Faith, was a nice little treat. The main set closed with a "holy shit" one-two punch of One Hundred Years and Disintegration. One Hundred Years, after all this time, hasn't lost any of it's impact; and the sped up take on Disintegration was a triumphant note to end on.
After three minutes or so, the band returned to the stage with At Night and played a super tight mini-set of songs from Seventeen Seconds. This first encore ended with a breathtaking (and very creepy) take on A Forest. A bunch of people started to leave during At Night, probably assuming it was the last song and they were going to beat the traffic by getting out a couple minutes early. Whoops - you missed A LOT, but thanks for giving us the opportunity to move down five rows!
A second, "pop songs" encore followed. I could take or leave most of it, minus Close to Me and Why Can't I Be You, but whatever. They really did do something for everybody.
The Cure came back to the stage one last time to play some early singles and tracks from their first album, Three Imaginary Boys. Boys Don't Cry, a track I don't really care for the recorded version of, was good fun live. Jumping Someone Else's Train was fantastic, and went literally without any pause into Grinding Halt, a song I never thought would sound so cool live. 10:15 Saturday Night, my favorite song from any of the earlier Cure records, was stellar. The real last song of the night - number thirty eight - was the band's first single, Killing An Arab. It was fast, furious, and just the right note with which to end the night.
This was the first show of The Cure's North American tour last year. They played three new songs: The Only One, Freak Show, and one that had never been played live before at all, The Perfect Boy. They all went over pretty well, except maybe Freak Show. You can hear the Only One on the Cure's website and there are a couple of good versions of Freak Show on youtube.
The Cure finished at around ten past midnight. Holy shit.
