Teenage Cancer Trust Unseen (feat. The Cure)

Started by Ulrich, September 28, 2020, 20:25:21

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Ulrich

QuoteA new YouTube festival has been announced to stream vintage performances by a host of the huge names who have played shows for Teenage Cancer Trust at London's Royal Albert Hall over the years.

Starting on October 8 with Ed Sheeran, Teenage Cancer Trust Unseen will be broadcast nightly at www.youtube.com/TCTUnseen until The Cure on October 19.
https://www.nme.com/news/music/roger-daltrey-teenage-cancer-trust-unseen-muse-cure-coranvirus-government-2760715

QuoteUnseen footage of gigs by Sir Paul McCartney, Ed Sheeran, Noel Gallagher and more will be shown to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

The annual concerts to benefit the charity, which are usually held at The Royal Albert Hall in London, were cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the footage, which has not been aired before, will be free to stream next month, with viewers being urged to make a donation to help "provide a lifeline for teenagers with cancer".

Other performances will come from Muse, Paul Weller, Stereophonics, Pulp, Rudimental, Them Crooked Vultures and The Cure.

...The Cure played a three-hour set on two consecutive nights in 2014.
https://www.music-news.com/news/UK/134823/Paul-McCartney-and-Ed-Sheeran-gigs-to-be-shown-for-Teenage-Cancer-Trust-Unseen

The holy city breathed like a dying man...

Ulrich


(P.S. According to one link above, the full Cure stream will be available Oct 31st!)
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

dsanchez

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

SueC

OK, who's going to watch this?  7am Halloween morning, if I've got the maths right and daylight saving etc, seems like a civilised time to catch it in WA...
SueC is time travelling

dsanchez

Watched it and it took me back in time (I was at this gig). Looking forward seeing the whole show on 31/10!
2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

Ulrich

From The Cure on FB:
QuoteWE WILL BE AIRING THE FULL SHOW ON SATURDAY 31ST OF OCTOBER @ 8PM AND @ MIDNIGHT UK TIME
AND ON SUNDAY 1ST OF NOVEMBER @ 4AM UK TIME

IF YOU WANT TO HELP WITH THIS EMERGENCY FUNDRAISING APPEAL AND ENJOY NEVER BEFORE SEEN FOOTAGE OF 45 SONGS PLAYED AT OUR ROYAL ALBERT HALL SHOWS 2014
SUBSCRIBE TO https://www.youtube.com/TCTUNSEEN
AND TUNE IN SUNDAY 31ST OCTOBER @ 8PM UK TIME
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Quote from: dsanchez on October 18, 2020, 23:36:16Watched it and it took me back in time (I was at this gig). Looking forward seeing the whole show on 31/10!

...do you happen to be wearing a distinctly coloured shirt or unusual hat in this, David?  That way I can look out for you!  ;)

It turns out our viewing times here are Sunday 4am (for insomniacs), 8am (for normal people), and noon (for the hungover). In our time zone, everyone is therefore catered for.   :smth023
SueC is time travelling

dsanchez

Quote from: SueC on October 30, 2020, 13:42:11...do you happen to be wearing a distinctly coloured shirt or unusual hat in this, David?  That way I can look out for you!  ;)

no, I don't use hats.... and I was seating at this gig (I always prefer to be standing but didn't get a ticket on time). Looking forward to see this tomorrow!
2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

SueC

Well, wasn't that fabulous?  :)

We caught the 8am time slot locally and found that most conveniently you could pause the transmission and resume it at leisure - allowing us time to make tea etc.  For once, we didn't have any interruptions to the stream, in spite of where we live.  This was definitely a bonus.

This is the fifth Cure concert we've watched in the last 12 months, but each time I sit down to watch one, I'm amazed anew at how consistently fantastic a live performance these people put on.  This was another big treat of a gig, with a generous sprinkling of songs we've not heard live that often - off the top of my head, Harold and Joe, 2 Late, Trust, Doing The Unstuck, A Strange Day, Lovecats.

While it's eminently true that I've been known to run away or cover my ears upon hearing some of this band's radio hits which have been forcefed to me many hundreds of times over the radio and PAs in public places over the last 35 years, this never happens to me when they play live - then it all works for me.  There's absolutely no question that they are my favourite contemporary live band.  So many different reasons...

The opener was Plainsong, and sublime music combined with gorgeous starry backdrops and lights to immediately immerse the audience in things of beauty.  There's theatre in this particular opener, like a Gothic cathedral filled with incense and with light streaming through stained glass windows.  Philosopher Alain de Botton does say we ought to adopt the best things about religion into secular life instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater - pay attention to creating moments of beauty and community and ritual and reflection; make architecture and art and music that offer a sanctuary from the materialism and institutionalised injustice and vast imposed ugliness of modern life - and the aptly titled concert opening song did precisely that, and set the tone for what was to come.

Here's a bunch of people who seem to make music the way the rest of us breathe, and who seem content just to make their music and enjoy playing, without placing any particular expectations on their audience, who can simply enjoy the show on their own terms.  I really appreciate that in a band.  When I was a university student I had a spotlight shone on me at a U2 gig, by their lead singer, who was expecting everyone to make this Mexican wave as he was passing the light beam over the audience, except I wouldn't and he actually paused it waiting for me to comply, and I ended up shaking my head at him to make it clear I wasn't going to play.  I really hate having the expectation placed on me that I'm going to jump when someone clicks their fingers, and I won't do it.  Personal pet hate - so don't put a hoop in front of me, and think I'm going to perform.  I'm not your circus monkey.  I don't mind audience interaction when it's on a volunteered basis, but not like this.

This is not a problem you're likely to have as an audience member in a Cure concert.  Their lead singer does do gentle audience interaction these days - but he doesn't impose on people.  He acknowledges the crowd with a polite and cheerful greeting at the start, makes brief but warm comments between songs, jokes and occasionally teases, like saying he thinks not many people will know the next song, before launching into something immensely well-known.  Haha.  His quips about the cow-bell being in tune or otherwise amused me at the start of the song Freakshow, and then I laughed even more when he said afterwards this really wasn't his instrument because it required-a-sense-of-timing (hitting the thing to add emphasis to the pronouncement).

I've always liked it when people just speak from the same level, without talking down (or up).  In a society beset with the notion of social hierarchy and the ritual osculation of posteriors, it's a breath of fresh air to observe people talking just from one human being to another.  If you believe in equality, walk the talk.  Full marks there for Mr Smith, well done.  I'm willing to place a bet that he doesn't habitually talk down to checkout staff either.

Another thing I find striking about The Cure playing live is a bit ironic actually, considering how Robert Smith was always going on about how old he was getting at 25 to be playing music etc - because here they are, most of them over 50 in this particular concert, and yet not looking one bit out of place on that stage, the same way a chamber orchestra doesn't look out of place just because everyone in it isn't under 30.  Some ageing rock outfits do look a bit ridiculous, but mostly because they're trying to be something they're not.  The Cure just seem to be very good at being who they are, and then age is not important.

Song Two out of 45 in this particular concert was Prayers For Rain, a song I occasionally skip when listening to Disintegration.  It immediately brought up the observation again that what may not work for me on the studio albums (sometimes depending on mood or the presence or absence of bees in my bonnet) almost always ends up being very agreeable to me live.  In part, it's because I think a lot of the songs I've tended to dislike are from earlier on in their careers, and they've all had decades since then to become very good at what they do, and to grow as people.  (While we're on this subject, anyone out there who looks down upon Jason Cooper's drumming seems to me to have boulders on their head - massive monadnocks, actually.)

They've really honed some of the material, and they also play variations - the last time we heard Lovecats it was a bit over-the-top; this time they presented a lovely, very jazzy version (yes it was always cartoony jazz, but this was more jazzy than cartoon).  Both of us were immediately impressed with the rich tone of the bass on this - Brett said, "Simon Gallup is showing us that you don't need a double bass for this!" and I wondered whether the fullness of that sound was a) a physical difference in playing, as it would have to be in an acoustic instrument, or b) a button-push thing these days, or c) a combination of both (I know very little about non-acoustic instruments).

Something else noteworthy was another Dr Who reference written on Mr Gallup's bass, which to Brett automatically makes him a cool cucumber and kindred spirit.  The pink bass didn't have an outing (may not have been a thing yet in 2014), and we were amused to see Simon Gallup engaging in theatrical bass-guitar shredding at the end of A Forest.  That's usually an antic associated with lead guitarists, and A Forest is of course rather elegantly understated in that department - adding to the fun of that little display.

Live music is so much more than sound recordings, and when people are competent enough not to depend upon studio tricks in order to sound good, the music can sound more alive and immediate than is possible in a studio setting.  And on top of that, of course, is that it then goes from just sound to performance art, which makes it three-dimensional.

By the way, has Robert Smith been hanging out with Italians?  These days he's consistently supporting his words with gestures while singing, the way a lot of Italians will do when speaking animatedly.  I've always liked watching the Auslan interpreters when we have important announcements on bushfires, plagues etc in our country, and I like the added dimension of mime when Mr Smith chooses to employ it on stage (particularly hilariously in Lullaby).

I've written reams, but still not waxed lyrical about how magnificent Trust sounded, or how the basement voice came out in Harold and Joe - indeed like a subterranean bunker voice for added comic effect at the start of that song - and how it reappeared briefly during Wrong Number, or how funny it was when Brett said, "They can't play One Hundred Years in this gig because it's for kids with cancer and you can't say It doesn't matter if we all die in that context!" - but then they played it anyway, and I think not to have done that would have been excessively correct.  I've not mentioned how Roger O'Donnell turned his tambourine into a projectile again, and how there were oodles of smiles amongst the various musicians in that particular performance, or how at one stage Robert Smith held a note so unexpectedly long and so beautifully that I nearly fell over with amazement while making a cup of tea, or lots of other things.

Like, it's so incredible to us that some Cure fans find Jupiter Crash "boring" - it's nothing of the kind to us, not musically and not lyrically.  It's one of the most atmospheric soundscapes written by anyone anywhere - close your eyes in the intro, and you can see and hear the nighttime beach, the stars in a velvet sky, the waves splashing, the eddying undercurrents (the latter suggested by the bass) - you're practically there already.  The words to this song are just A1 writing; an extended metaphor that really works,  fabulous imagery,  a theme few people go near, careful wording that sometimes makes you wince, sometimes makes you laugh, and eloquently conveys the bittersweetness of much of the human condition.  (But you can't hop around to it, which may be the issue for some people.  :evil:)

Brett was telling me that this song really reminds him of the way Suzanne Vega writes - and I fully agree with that.  This is such a cousin to her Small Blue Thing, just as a stage performance of Pictures of You is a cousin to a stage performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and just as Plainsong is a cousin to the first movement of Arvo Pärt's Tabula rasa.  This is the kind of music that says what we can't say in words, and makes me glad to be alive.  ♥

And didn't the venue have a lovely interior?  Sometimes, everything just comes together - including not playing in an industrial building.  45 songs, three and a half hours, wow, I enjoyed every minute of that.  It just seemed to have everything - laughter, tears, darkness, sunbeams, beauty, profoundness, levity, tragedy, comedy, lamentation, celebration, soundscapes, dance tunes, incredible musical versatility, atmosphere, generosity, virtuosity, down-to-earthness, fabulous collaboration and a sense of community - no wonder The Cure continue to get well-deserved rave reviews as a live band.

Thanks to everyone who organised this online event - it really made our 2020 Hallowe'en weekend memorable for us - and rather aptly coincided with the blue moon here on Hallowe'en night.  :)
SueC is time travelling

SueC

I know this is naughty but...if anybody happens to see the full-length Cure gig from this event temporarily pop up on YT, I'd love to know, because I wouldn't mind having this one in our library to re-watch on a rainy day...
SueC is time travelling