Festival 2005 DVD - My initial thoughts

[tram71]

Porl even manages to change his outfit WHILE he plays

   so how come some people still keep saying he's boring? 

lol Got me....I think he brings a nice energy back to their stage performance. Now there's someone besides Simon that's moving around instead of just standing there, and all of them look like they're actually enjoying themselves.

04. The Blood - Wow. Porl totally owns those leads. I cringe at the thought of what they would have sounded like if Bamonte had tried to play them.

AFAIK, The group never played The Blood when Bamonte was the primary guitarist, and from everything I've heard and seen, whenever it came to doing one of the leads that Porl would have usually played, Bamonte's were slow and lazy versions of them. Now, I thought that his performances for Disintegration and Pornography on Trilogy were good, but I really think that was only because they probably really, really, really rehearsed the hell out of those songs - but when it gets to Bloodflowers, I just got bored - there was no energy behind it (but that last part wasn't just him, it was the entire group). And during the Trilogy version of The Kiss (which is really really good) I am still trying to figure out what exactly Bamonte was doing on that song - he had a slide on his finger, but it looked to me like he was just standing there.

Of course, all of this is just my opinion. 

[muell]

i gave the dvd as a present for my best friend's birthday and i glimpsed over it: I got goosebumps and started crying on a strange day - i loved it so much. first time in years i did not keep my eyes only on simon but was fascinated to have a look at porl. compared to him, robert bored me just a bit. drowning man was very intimate - i was very looking forward to see the visuals of one of the songs i love live best. electric version of just like heaven thrills me.
effects were awful from time to time and looked so cheap. but hey, another memory of their berlin concerts beside trilogy. I have to admit as well: i don't miss perry ...

[bomber2007]

Hey tram71,
You say the line-up with Perry as guitarist never played The Blood, but in fact they actually did play it about 20 times on the 1996 Swing Tour.

[lostflower4]

04. The Blood - Wow. Porl totally owns those leads. I cringe at the thought of what they would have sounded like if Bamonte had tried to play them.

They did indeed play The Blood several times on the Swing Tour. If I recall, there was really no lead at all.

Yeah, I don't miss Perry as a guitarist. He could be their keyboard player again, though. Not that he was incredibly talented at it, but at least he didn't play a tambourine on stage.

[bomber2007]

In fact the 1996 Swing Tour is the most The Blood has ever been played on a tour, 19 times :

16/12/1996 Birmingham
10/12/1996 London
30/11/1996 Stockholm
25/11/1996 Essen
23/11/1996 Hamburg
21/11/1996 Munich
19/11/1996 Stuttgart
17/11/1996 Prague
16/11/1996 Vienna
15/11/1996 Katowice
13/11/1996 Berlin
12/11/1996 Hannover
09/11/1996 Gent
05/11/1996 Rennes
03/11/1996 Toulouse
01/11/1996 Zaragoza
30/10/1996 Barcelona
28/10/1996 Marseille
27/10/1996 Geneva

[tram71]

Hey tram71,
You say the line-up with Perry as guitarist never played The Blood, but in fact they actually did play it about 20 times on the 1996 Swing Tour.

In fact the 1996 Swing Tour is the most The Blood has ever been played on a tour, 19 times :

16/12/1996 Birmingham
10/12/1996 London
30/11/1996 Stockholm
25/11/1996 Essen
23/11/1996 Hamburg
21/11/1996 Munich
19/11/1996 Stuttgart
17/11/1996 Prague
16/11/1996 Vienna
15/11/1996 Katowice
13/11/1996 Berlin
12/11/1996 Hannover
09/11/1996 Gent
05/11/1996 Rennes
03/11/1996 Toulouse
01/11/1996 Zaragoza
30/10/1996 Barcelona
28/10/1996 Marseille
27/10/1996 Geneva

INFO PWN3D

...as far as I knew of. I stand corrected. I'll just say that I'm happy that they didn't play it when they came to Detroit during that tour. (And from what it looks like, they didn't even play it at all on the US leg of their tour.)

04. The Blood - Wow. Porl totally owns those leads. I cringe at the thought of what they would have sounded like if Bamonte had tried to play them.

They did indeed play The Blood several times on the Swing Tour. If I recall, there was really no lead at all.

Yeah, I don't miss Perry as a guitarist. He could be their keyboard player again, though. Not that he was incredibly talented at it, but at least he didn't play a tambourine on stage.

Here's the thing with Perry - he was great at making wild noises and doing real cool lazy sounding guitar parts, but when it came to taking on parts that Porl did live, they just fell flat (I've seen the Cure three times, all of them with Perry as the primary guitarist). His playing only really worked when he was providing the additional guitar.

As far as his keyboard playing goes, I never had an issue with it. And I'd just like to mention that Porl is quite the keyboardist as well - I watched a superb live version of "Bananafishbones" from "The Tube" TV program circa 1984 last night on YouTube. Quite good IMO.

And if Perry didn't even attempt the lead on "The Blood", well...I'll give him credit for knowing his own limitations 

[DontMoove]

I have a very good feeling with this dvd... may be because I feel that the band have a real fun and more power with this 4 members formation... and yes, Perry is not Porl, he was sometime anoying with his noise, and he is not good at keyboards either but he contributed to the cure for some great shows and albums... and I am very thankfull for that... Now a new cure is up !!! have fun in 2007 !!!

for info about songs played duriong tours, there is a great tool on the net : have a look, you can find a large database of shows, sonngs, covers etc... etc...

for the blood example : http://www.foreverdrowning.net/archive.php?tri=1&id=37

http://www.foreverdrowning.net

[japanesebaby]

i always liked perry a lot as a personality in the cure so i was a bit sad to see him go.
but what comes to musicianship, i think he was ok as far as he was more or less sort of "back-up guy", as long as he played some parts that didn't involve improvisational techniques and so on. he pulled it off ok but was never really brilliant. for instance, 'from the edge...' was never the same after porl left. that's why i think he was even somehow better with keyboards, even though he was somewhat more clumsy there at the same time... but it worked ok in the overall context, despite his limitations. as a guitarists he could never really contribute that much since it would have craved a different approach than what he faced with the keyboards.

the main reason i've been happy to see porl back is because i think with him some "hope" of improvisation and experimenting, some surprise factor might return to the cure, at least partially. because honestly, the band has more or less abandon that ever since wish tour, the songs have been more or less the same - and it wasn't always like that. for instance, as brilliant as some dream tour performances are they are still pretty much the same songs performed in a similar manner from one show to the next... and so one can't help starting losing some of the interest, maybe.
there's not guarantee that porl will change that, he's not a magician or a miracle worker - but at least he brings one element back into the cure that has been missing. getting rid off the keyboards for a while can also contribute to the same goal. it forces the band to look for some other ways of presenting the songs, to rearrange them again, to find something new there.
at least i hope they'd work towards that. we'll see, i suppose...

m

[Bloodflower]

I was very sad to see both Perry and Roger ousted. I think I miss Roger's keyboards more than Perry's guitar, though....

[KingOfSomeIsland]

I liked the DVD althogh they definitelty shouldve played some songs from Bloodflowers.

Although I think Perry was good in the studio(39 and Bloodflowers have great solos on the album) whereas he isnt that great live, like 39's solos just sucked on Trilogy...

[tram71]

I liked the DVD althogh they definitelty shouldve played some songs from Bloodflowers.

Although I think Perry was good in the studio(39 and Bloodflowers have great solos on the album) whereas he isnt that great live, like 39's solos just sucked on Trilogy...

I can't be sure of this, but methinks that most of the guitar work on Bloodflowers was Smith. It wouldn't be the first time he's done all of the guitar work for an album.

[Bloodflower]

Robert verifiably did the solo in-studio for Bloodflowers and said that Perry didn't even play at all on a few tracks. Robert also said that all of the solos were his. He jokingly said it was this way because he wanted to win a guitar award with Bloodfowers.

So, yes, Robert did almost all of the guitar-work on Bloodflowers, with Perry not playing at all on some tracks. And I do love the guitars on Bloodflowers.

[Bloodflower]

I liked the DVD althogh they definitelty shouldve played some songs from Bloodflowers.

YES they should have! Not a single one on the DVD!

A Bloodflowers song hasn't been played live since 6.9.2004 Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico. I think Porl must dislike Bloodflowers or something. Robert's always spoken very well of it, and he even called the title track the song that is most representative of The Cure on MTV2 a few weeks ago.

So thanks, Porl, for liking Signal To Noise, but I want some Bloodflowers!

[tram71]

I liked the DVD althogh they definitelty shouldve played some songs from Bloodflowers.

Although I think Perry was good in the studio(39 and Bloodflowers have great solos on the album) whereas he isnt that great live, like 39's solos just sucked on Trilogy...

I can't be sure of this, but methinks that most of the guitar work on Bloodflowers was Smith. It wouldn't be the first time he's done all of the guitar work for an album.

I just popped in Trilogy...if you thought the solos on that version of 39 sucked, you'll have to blame Robert - Perry wasn't playing them...he was just doing additional stuff.

And FWIW the only song that does it for me on the Bloodflowers section of the Trilogy DVD is "Bloodflowers" - and even then it sounds like Robert's running out of steam - nowhere near the amount of emotion that he put into the studio version.

I liked the DVD althogh they definitelty shouldve played some songs from Bloodflowers.

YES they should have! Not a single one on the DVD!

A Bloodflowers song hasn't been played live since 6.9.2004 Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico. I think Porl must dislike Bloodflowers or something. Robert's always spoken very well of it, and he even called the title track the song that is most representative of The Cure on MTV2 a few weeks ago.

So thanks, Porl, for liking Signal To Noise, but I want some Bloodflowers!

Yeah, I wouldn't mind hearing the title track with the new lineup. The rest though...just leave it be. Although, now thinking about it, I wouldn't mind hearing Porl's interpretation of "Watching Me Fall" either, as when I was watching the Trilogy version I kept thinking "this would rock so much harder if Porl were playing the leads...."

[Bloodflower]

I, too, would like to hear Porl play Watching me Fall, but really I'd just like to hear the Cure play Bloodflowers songs again in general. They don't have to be specialised Porl-versions, I just want to hear some Bloodflowers.