40 Live Curaetion 25 + Anniversary Deluxe (available on a 2 DVD / 4 CD set or a 2 Blu-ray / 4 CD set) will be released this October 18th! You can already pre-order:
40 Live Curaetion 25 + Anniversary [2 Blu-ray/4 CD][Deluxe Box Set] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VRFZ63F?ie=UTF8&tag=curefanscom-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=B07VRFZ63F)
40 Live Curaetion 25 + Anniversary [2 DVD/4 CD][Deluxe Box Set] (https://amzn.to/2GMp89E)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81B18gMkM3L._SL1500_.jpg)
Quote"CURÆTION-25: From There To Here | From Here To There"
Captured on the tenth and final night of the 25th Meltdown Festival (curated by lead singer Robert Smith) at London's Royal Festival Hall in June 2018. Presented in HD with 5.1 surround sound, Smith, Simon Gallup, Jason Cooper, Roger O'Donnell, and Reeves Gabrels performed a song from each of their 13 studio albums in chronological order, displaying the evolution of The Cure's music live on stage. At the core of the set, they broke the cycle with some new, unreleased songs – offering a glimpse into the band's future – before retracing their steps with another song from each album, ending with "Boys Don't Cry."
Tracklisting:
Three Imaginary Boys
At Night
Other Voices
A Strange Day
Bananafishbones
A Night Like This
Like Cockatoos
Pictures Of You
High
Jupiter Crash
39
Us Or Them
It's Over
It Can Never Be The Same
Step Into The Light
The Hungry Ghost
alt.end
The Last Day Of Summer
Want
From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
Disintegration
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
Sinking
Shake Dog Shake
One Hundred Years
Primary
A Forest
Boys Don't Cry
ANNIVERSARY: 1978-2018 Live In Hyde Park London
Released in cinemas globally on the 11th July, ANNIVERSARY: 1978-2018 Live In Hyde Park London features the band's acclaimed 29-song, 135-minute anniversary concert. Filmed in one of London's Royal Parks to a crowd of 65,000 fans, The Cure presented a four-decade deep set on July 7, 2018, including "Just Like Heaven," "Lovesong," "High," and "The End Of The World." Adding to the experience, the band is back-dropped by giant screens displaying footage that complements the unique moods and emotive songwriting that established The Cure as pioneers of alternative rock. The result is a concert that Rolling Stone expressed shows the 'unique power in The Cure's live performance.'
Tracklisting:
Plainsong
Pictures of You
High
A Night Like This
The Walk
The End of the World
Lovesong
Push
In Between Days
Just Like Heaven
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
Play for Today
A Forest
Shake Dog Shake
Burn
Fascination Street
Never Enough
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
Disintegration
Lullaby
The Caterpillar
Friday I'm in Love
Close to Me
Why Can't I Be You?
Boys Don't Cry
Jumping Someone Else's Train
Grinding Halt
10:15 Saturday Night
Killing an Arab
Nice one; I didn't know Curaetion was filmed too! :smth023
Yes, I'm looking forward to this! Particularly the
cureation set, with a more interesting setlist. There is an upload on YT someone filmed of the whole show (over 2 videos). It seemed like a terrific show, and even though it wasn't pro-shot (which is usually what I'll only watch...fussy me :) I was hooked in watching the whole thing. Now just to wait a few more months :)
Spotted this yesterday but still haven't seen anything in the UK Amazon store regarding preorder, I think the link is the US store. I'm so excited,
I WANT TO PREORDER NOWWWWWWWW!!!! 😠😠😠😠😠😠
Article (includes a short trailer):
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-cure-40th-anniversary-concert-films-869404/
QuoteThe Cure marked their 40th anniversary in 2018 with a pair of unique shows in London: One where they went through their catalogue chronologically for a small audience of die-hards, and another where they played a lengthy, career-spanning set to a massive crowd in Hyde Park. Both concerts were filmed and will be released this fall as 40 Live – Curætion-25 + Anniversary, a box set that will come in a variety of configurations.
The former concert, dubbed Curætion-25: From There to Here / From Here to There, features the band playing a spiraling set list that starts with one of their earliest songs and boasts a song from each album up through their most current release, 2008's 4:13 Dream. The Cure also played a pair of previously unreleased songs and then worked their way backwards to "Boys Don't Cry." The performance was part of the 25th annual Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall last June. The video features HD picture and 5.1 surround sound.
THE CURE 40 LIVE - CURÆTION-25 + ANNIVERSARY is out on 18th October and available to pre-order now
from the original site www.thecure.com and https://www.eagle-rock.com/the-cure-40
I already ordered mine :happy
I had to edit above post, as it was not the trailer, just an advert. (Now corrected.)
dsanchez already shared this (but I think it's good to have a topic in "news" as well!):
http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9199.0
Quote from: Ulrich on August 09, 2019, 18:26:27I had to edit above post, as it was not the trailer, just an advert.
dsanchez already shared this (but I think it's good to have a topic in "news" as well!):
http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9199.0
Oh sorry thanks Ulrich 😏
No probs, I put in the trailer above, plus here's another one:
"Disintegration" video now online:
It looks fabulous and has so much in it, just a little expensive for me... I think I'll hold out for the new record! (So excited!!!)
Still currently unavailable to preorder from Amazon Spain.
I can buy it from universal store, but 20€ for shipping..wtf
Happiness is...when Amazon message you to tell you that your Cureation box set has been despatched and will arrive tomorrow!
😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆 (Any chance of a Bob Smith emoji!)
I don't own a Blu-Ray player so was going to get this on DVD. Due to the insane postage I decided to wait until the release date and go buy it in-store. There's a store here in Australia called jbhifi that would be selling it (or so I thought).
To my surprise it wasn't there, only the Blu-Ray was. I inquired, asking if the DVD can be ordered in and they looked into it, told me "it was not released on DVD in Australia"
So Australia is not getting DVD release? (ie zone 4 DVD)
I don't know who made that call (Eagle Rock Entertainment? Or The Cure?) but it seems surprising, and means many people will be unable to buy a copy they can watch.
@word_on_a_wing, we've had trouble ordering DVDs online that were allegedly for our region, but turned out region-locked for another region. :1f62b: We couldn't return them (postage is prohibitive) and so Brett worked out a little hack so we could watch them after all.
This probably isn't going to work under Windows. We use Linux as our operating system, and Brett downloaded a few packages that allowed him to play such DVDs on his laptop, which he then hooked up to the TV and good sound system in the lounge. He says you can also rip these DVDs with such packages and then play them off a USB stick etc. And, that you can buy DVD players that don't have region locking in them - usually cheap Chinese ones. And that Blu-Ray players aren't that expensive anymore - especially secondhand.
It's unbelievably annoying that DVDs get region-locked. It might be illegal (were you to ask) to play them back the way we do, but the way we see it, we've bought them fair and square in good faith and should therefore be able to play them. The first DVD that created this problem for us was an old BBC series that we ordered that was allegedly OK for Australia but when it arrived, it was locked to Europe. It wasn't available in any other form and was a rare find anyway, and so Brett worked around that.
Good luck! :)
Thanks for your thoughtful response Sue.
I'm thinking I'll buy the digital download of the Cureation set for now, and wait a bit longer, in case the DVD is released in Australia in the future.
The use of software to convert it sounds interesting but a bit too complicated for my liking.
I contemplated buying a Bluray Player, or a player that plays dvds of all regions/zones but I'm reluctant to take that step (as I'm trying to minimise my possessions and 'footprint' as much as possible).
Cheers 🌸
You're welcome,
@word_on_a_wing. :cool And you wouldn't believe how much perfectly functional electronic gear you can pick up off kerbside rubbish collections in this country... :1f631: Looking around our house, much of our electronic gear was either bought second-hand, or passed on to us by upgrade fanatics. I've not bought a TV set in over 20 years - people keep passing on their throwaways to us, often without us even asking - they can't bear how "backward" we are and probably think we are too poor to afford "the latest" as they can't conceive of not wanting those things... :)
Ask around, and someone will probably throw their "outdated" Blu-Ray at you for free. Also, have you tried Freecycle? https://www.freecycle.org/ ...better to be re-homed, than going into landfill...
You should see our mobile phones! :) I have no interest in using a mobile phone for anything except phoning people or texting them. And, I usually don't have it on me - only when going to town. The rest of the time it sits in the house, like a landline.
Today received the deluxe box set, Blu Ray for me. Relatively cheap, 50€ from Amazon Spain. It said American version, but also no region locked Blu ray,i can confirm, currently watching on my ps4.
I wish they had released a 4K version on UHDBR, despite not having a player for that yet, but still looks and sounds amazing.
Also bought since i had some money from Google rewards, the digital albums on Google play music so i don't have to rip my cds.
I've only found the digital video on iTunes, so not buying there. Will have to find a way to rip my BR to have a digital copy since is more convenient.
So I went out today and bought me the DVD (instead of Bluray, which I had in mind, but the shop "only" had 2 versions of the DVD and this looked nice, so I bought it):
(https://scontent-frx5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/75521934_2436909143052856_941482163000311808_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_oc=AQkWRJbf_wqseUKn9CaV-qI3T140RncCzJlgA0FC3gOi6xOtXes8KN-mP67D04Wcdf-bt4dO7VlTami5HagzVtVP&_nc_ht=scontent-frx5-1.xx&oh=3e53d9b48246a7d181656c5f417250fb&oe=5E5F22C0)
Part of the booklet:
(https://scontent-frx5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/74607691_2436909259719511_7732603641625837568_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&_nc_oc=AQnVlC8_vFM0EKjX-rpkD8CvIFWlqfFIG0iPoNjw_YKOtAooJpTG2nvzvutj1ZvkfXrPv4K5foYTftRs6Pq7CELG&_nc_ht=scontent-frx5-1.xx&oh=e86ea6cfb13aa5ed5e5d01ce523e60ef&oe=5E57EF04)
Well, it's the perfect weather for watching dvd's (cold, wet, grey). Yesterday I watched "From there to here" and wasn't totally impressed. Of course, to be fair, this wasn't filmed/edited by Tim Pope, but still: I'd expected a little more (the effects used are sometimes good, at times "cheesy").
Best song (so far) for me from this part: "Jupiter Crash" (I already liked this one back in 1995, when they performed it at "Rock am See" festival!), worst track: "39" (if they'll play this at the next concert I'll go to, it's an ideal opportunity for a run to the toilets)...
Quote from: Ulrich on November 08, 2019, 13:01:02Best song (so far) for me from this part: "Jupiter Crash" (I already liked this one back in 1995, when they performed it at "Rock am See" festival!), worst track: "39" (if they'll play this at the next concert I'll go to, it's an ideal opportunity for a run to the toilets)...
Yeah,
Jupiter Crash is one of my favourites too, and the lyrics to
39 are something of a storm in a teacup, especially viewed from this end! Gotta tell you, turning 30 was way more traumatic than turning 40, because by then I knew that the whole youth worship thing was a load of bollocks and I wasn't going to be suddenly a little shrivelled old lady at 40 or have my inner qualities disappear - I was only getting more creative. We all have finite life spans, but it's better to live well than to keep agonising over an end that's not there yet, and when it is there, it's the same oblivion as before we were born, and that wasn't too painful. By the way,
@Ulrich, our neighbour is in his 60s and built his own two-seater aeroplane from kit. He said that his brain worked best in his 50s! And is still working better than in his 20s.
Thanks for the reviews! :cool We're looking forward to Christmas.
Quote from: SueC on November 08, 2019, 14:47:02Yeah, Jupiter Crash is one of my favourites too, and the lyrics to 39 are something of a storm in a teacup, especially viewed from this end! Gotta tell you, turning 30 was way more traumatic than turning 40, because by then I knew that the whole youth worship thing was a load of bollocks and I wasn't going to be suddenly a little shrivelled old lady at 40 or have my inner qualities disappear
Well I agree about JC. Also about the birthdays, 40 seemed "easier" to me than 30. (Let's just forget about turning 50... I still feel like 48...)
Back when "Bloodflowers" was new, I could relate to "39" (RS spent half his life with this band, so I understand the sentiment). But now, it seems a bit "out of date" and the way it sounded on the dvd wasn't too pleasing to my ears.
Next up will be "From here to there". :cool
Well, "From here to there" was enjoyable (better than the first part, I thought). Especially the songs from "If only tonight..." until "100 years" were emotional and powerful for me. :smth023
Quote from: Ulrich on November 08, 2019, 17:48:04...40 seemed "easier" to me than 30. (Let's just forget about turning 50... I still feel like 48...)
I've always liked the -8 birthdays, for some reason. 18, 28, 38, 48. The -9 birthdays feel a bit claustrophobic. And to be honest, as of next birthday I'd prefer there to be general age amnesia and then I can just be ageless, because it's sort of tedious doing all that counting and trying to remember how old you are when it changes all the time anyway. I'm going to adopt a more Hopi Indian perspective of time as cyclical, rather than the linear view of the West. :P
QuoteBack when "Bloodflowers" was new, I could relate to "39" (RS spent half his life with this band, so I understand the sentiment). But now, it seems a bit "out of date" and the way it sounded on the dvd wasn't too pleasing to my ears.
It's unusual for the sound to be off. We'll have to watch out for it. I recently heard a performance of
Disintegration where I actually didn't recognise the song at first. Seemed to be varying something there.
Re the age, I kind of get angsting over getting older and leaving your 20s, 30s etc and feeling a little like you've been shot into deep space, because that's what it was like for me too - especially turning 30; less so now. I just didn't ever get scared that my creativity was going to dry up or that I was all done or that I was going to run out of words, because of getting older. I kind of expect intellectual and creative things to get better with practice, i.e. as we get older.
I guess my reaction these days at this ageing-angst is more poking fun back at myself contemplating 30, etc. I think the song does describe a very human experience that lots of us can relate to. There is a kind of grief attached to this stuff, but I also found that the losses are offset by gains, which is why I now think it's a bit of a storm in a teacup to stress about turning 40.
In a way, these lyrics can be two things: Acknowledgement of feelings like that, for the people feeling them; and also, for the people who've been there and kind of got over it a bit, something of a Theatre of the Absurd - which allows us to laugh at ourselves. (We did a lot of Samuel Beckett when I was in high school, which is how I was introduced to that concept!)
QuoteNext up will be "From here to there". :cool
From your reaction to it, I gather you're one of those strange people who listens to lyrics as well as enjoys the actual music! :cool We're looking forward to watching all this at Christmas...
Quote from: SueC on November 11, 2019, 12:53:53It's unusual for the sound to be off. We'll have to watch out for it. I recently heard a performance of Disintegration where I actually didn't recognise the song at first.
Same thing happened to me when listening to (watching) the Hyde Park concert dvd, it took me quite long with one song: "what's this? Oh, it's supposed to be Fascination Street"... :?
Quote from: SueC on November 11, 2019, 12:53:53From your reaction to it, I gather you're one of those strange people who listens to lyrics as well as enjoys the actual music!
Yes, normally I do. (There are however a few songs, of which I never really got the lyrics completely, but still enjoy nevertheless!)
Hi all, and Merry Christmas 🎄
Did anyone get a DVD version of the Cureation and Anniversary release?
If so can you please look on the box and check if it has a Region number, or says "Region free".
Online stores are saying differing things, with Amazon saying Region Free, but other places clearly saying it won't play in Australia.
I'd be thankful to anyone able to check 🙂
...edit** I just found the answer! Yay!! The DVDs are Region Free! I deciphered it by zooming into an image of the discs and noticing "FSK 0" typed on them (which apparently means Region free) ...horray!
Would have been handy if it was made clearer that the DVD disks are Region Free ...will order now and look forward to finally being able to see and enjoy this !!
Quote from: word_on_a_wing on December 21, 2019, 13:33:42...edit** I just found the answer! Yay!! The DVDs are Region Free! I deciphered it by zooming into an image of the discs and noticing "FSK 0" typed on them (which apparently means Region free)
No, it does not. This sticker (see e.g. above on my photo of my dvd package) means it can be viewed by anyone from the age of "0" (as opposed to e.g. "16" or "18").
I will check what it says on the back of my package asap. EDIT: can't find any info on the dvd or package itself.
Amazon (German branch) says it is "region 2".
... oh shoot. I ordered it last night so guess I'll just have to see what arrives.
The website I bought it from is the Australian Amazon site, and it clearly does say All Regions
https://www.amazon.com.au/ (https://www.amazon.com.au/Cure-Live-Curaetion-Anniversary-DVD/dp/B07VTHFNMR)
Fingers crossed
Quote from: word_on_a_wing on December 22, 2019, 01:55:25The website I bought it from is the Australian Amazon site, and it clearly does say All Regions
Sounds good. :smth023
If that doesn't ring true, send it back and complain!
Well, our box set, after being officially delayed, arrived at the very last moment on Christmas Eve, only just getting here by a whisker for the Christmas night viewing we'd planned months ago. We were already discussing alternative plans in case it didn't turn up. :angel :angel
At the moment we have peak daylight in Australia, and it's not dark till after 8pm, so we often get in late, and this afternoon we went to a lovely beach called Cosy Corner to make Christmas more memorable. So, to cut a long story short, don't start watching a Cure concert at 9pm and expect to finish it unless you're prepared to run into the wee hours. which we really aren't well advised to do just now with all the sleep deprivation we had because of that mutated bug that beset our respiratory organs recently, grrrrr. :1f635:
So, we've watched half of the Hyde Park concert so far, before we had to retire for the night. We were both super impressed with the sound quality, both from a sound reproduction perspective, and in terms of the sound being produced by the band. I've watched quite a bit of live Cure, and yet as this concert got underway, I was just struck anew by what a fabulous live band this lot is. They could play bands half their age into the ground. They sound even better than they did on
Trilogy nearly 20 years ago. They haven't become caricatures of themselves and show that you can be a person, so far over and above being an age.
I enjoy a lot of good live music, but there's something about this band that just hits the stratosphere for me in a way that other contemporary bands usually do not. The Cure live is very like our ACO live - the Australian Chamber Orchestra also, at least when I saw them, was just dead impressive with their musicianship and the chemistry and communication between the players; with the extraordinary sounds they kept coming up with; with how that transferred to the audience.
The Cure don't play like most contemporary bands - they play more like chamber orchestras do, cooperatively to make a sound that's a whole, rather than playing bit-parts. They create soundscapes you can immerse yourself in, and conjure up so much with this. It is such a thoroughly enjoyable experience to hear what they do live on stage.
It's the first time we've seen a Cure gig that started in actual daylight. You can really understand why once they begin they often go on for long periods of time by peer standards.
I'll have to append this tomorrow, eyes falling shut!
Appending:
Great way to spend Christmas night, snuggled up on the sofa with your favourite person, and the lights on the Christmas tree blinking gently in the far visual field, and this long-awaited treat playing. Our version is the Blu-Ray and came in a square package that reminded us fossils of LPs. It's all beautifully presented, and sturdy, and the people who sent it to us even used all-compostable packaging (which went straight into our compost to improve its C:N ratio) and no waste plastic. If I had to make complaints, I would have two:
1) I would like to make all graphic designers who think it's a great idea to print text in low-contrast colours (e.g. orange on pink background), and to overlap print to look arty, take an ice bath in Siberia - you know the ones, where people cut a hole in the ice and dive in and come out purple. My husband, who is a trained graphic designer, suggests a more severe punishment: That they be doomed to only use Comic Sans MS for the rest of their lives - suicide or psychosis would swiftly follow... :evil: It's bad enough to try to decipher stuff like this when you've got decently elastic lenses, but once you start needing reading glasses (us, this year), that kind of proposition becomes painful and frustrating and results in much cursing and disgruntlement. :1f629:
2) It would have been nice to get some sit-and-talk special features, like on the
Trilogy set, and perhaps a historical overview of the Meltdown festival. (I may eat my words because we've not looked at the second disc, but there's nothing on the track listing.)
Anyway, back to our lovely Christmas night, and the moment we put the disc into the system and sat back: The first thing I noticed was the camerawork, which started out from a behind-the-band point of view, and that's a nice way to begin because a good concert is like a good conversation, where both points of view are valuable. Showing this perspective is a good reminder: This is a human interaction, both between the people cooperating to make the music, and also between the musicians and the audience who has turned up to enjoy hearing it. Also I very much commend that in this and other Cure concert films I've seen, the "rock star" type shots have been avoided - you know the ones, from a low camera angle looking up at a great height and "look at me" - the worst of that type I've seen have the performers' crotches as their focal point, and I find that highly distasteful. :smth011 This film is filmed like a good Attenborough wildlife documentary - it allows you to observe the life forms going about their normal business in their natural habitat, and does it unobtrusively. :angel
On observing the wildlife, I had two immediate impressions: First of all, that at least one of them is normally a nocturnal animal, and had emerged blinking into the sunlight because necessitated by unusual circumstances to do so. Secondly, that one of them is a particularly high-energy variety who appears to have a very effective metabolism that gives him kinetic advantages compared to the other animals.
We always smile at Simon Gallup's roaming all over the place during a performance. I imagine he would have been the sort of toddler who was forever racing around and getting into all the cupboards. On the nominative determinism thread, I've given him an award for the way he "gallups" all over the stage during a concert, sometimes reminiscent of a bicycle courier industriously making deliveries to various places. The other members seem to enjoy his visits; clearly he's delivering good vibes. This results in some very nice on-stage interactions. Whether it's The Cure or the ACO or anyone else playing sublime music live, I always love the moments when they catch each other's eyes and smile, or cue each other.
Speaking of, I think it's so nice to see how relaxed these people are these days on stage. I imagine Reeves Gabrels was born relaxed and Buddha-like, or else acquired this trait many years ago. Calm just seems to emanate from him like water from one of those Japanese water features, and he's like the perpetual cool cat. Brett was disappointed by being able to see through his glasses at one point, "I don't want to see his eyes! Just his glasses!" Some people have strange wishes. :) He also thought Simon Gallup had lost a bet with someone because of the colour of his bass. My own thoughts are that if you're secure in your masculinity, you don't need to not own pink things. Personally I really hate pink stuff for myself and have since before age 3, and had many battles over the colour with my mother - but if I were male, I'd probably go the opposite way and like it, I mean, Iconoclasm 101...
Brett is making a hobby of freezing frames on Simon Gallup's tattoos to study them in depth, and reading all sorts of Dr Who messages into them which may or may not be real. (My husband is a complete Dr Who obsessive.) He thinks one of the tattoos is the logo of one of the publishers of classic Dr Who novelisations, and is wondering if the rose is a reference to one of the companions - that one I think is a really long, long shot and rather unbecoming... but we're both pretty sure that the Bad Wolf reference goes with the bassist - and for non-Dr Who obsessives, that's a reference to an episode called exactly that, but also to a really excellent one called
The Day Of The Doctor:
It really struck me again, watching the concert last night, how significant the bass playing - and the personality of that bass playing - is in The Cure's music. It carries the music to a great extent, and it's more than just a part of an excellent rhythm section - it's frequently part of an intertwining of melodies and textures. The way the two guitars and bass work together is so often very like the way double bass, cellos, violas and violins work together in a string quartet. I have very little formal musical education - just some basic school curriculum stuff, and three years of taking violin lessons in my late 20s / early 30s, which were mostly playing by ear, and only going back for another lesson when I got stuck - so I don't have specialist vocabulary in that area, and I certainly don't sight-read sheet music (I decipher it very slowly, with help). Therefore, when I write about music, I just try to describe it in ordinary terms. When I run into people with specialist vocabulary, I turn them into Swiss cheeses, so beware! ;)
Brett has particular soft spots for
Burn,
The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, and
Shake Dog Shake (and pretty much anything off
The Top and
Bloodflowers), so was very happy to see all of these in the Hyde Park set. He also much enjoyed
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep because of its Eastern flavours and general construction. I think the lyrics on that make great stand-alone poetry - but even more effective with the music.
If I keep sitting here tapping at the keyboard this is going to become a novel, so I'm going to try to wind up (for now, as we've only watched half of that particular gig). So, I'm just going to add how nice it is when you get the impression that a band is really enjoying playing, which we certainly did watching this film. Robert Smith was positively theatrical, and far more inclined to move than when he was a younger person, and smiling broadly on numerous occasions. Reeves Gabrels seemed to hum with bonhomie, and Roger O'Donnell got very close to head-banging in time with his contribution. Simon Gallup was, if possible, even more animated than normal, and Jason Cooper, even under the duress of drumming - which has got to be the most physically demanding job in the group - managed a very memorable 1000 Watt smile at one of the others. When they did
Never Enough, it was pure street theatre. :lol:
There will be more to follow when we get a chance to finish watching, but that will be in a follow-up post!
Quote from: SueC on December 25, 2019, 17:31:34Well, our box set, after being officially delayed, arrived at the very last moment on Christmas Eve, only just getting here by a whisker for the Christmas night viewing we'd planned months ago. We were already discussing alternative plans in case it didn't turn up. :angel :angel
At the moment we have peak daylight in Australia, and it's not dark till after 8pm, so we often get in late, and this afternoon we went to a lovely beach called Cosy Corner to make Christmas more memorable. So, to cut a long story short, don't start watching a Cure concert and expect to finish it unless you're prepared to run into the wee hours. which we really aren't well advised to do just now with all the sleep deprivation we had because of that mutated bug that beset our respiratory organs recently, grrrrr. :1f635:
So, we've watched half of the Hyde Park concert so far, before we had to retire for the night. We were both super impressed with the sound quality, both from a sound reproduction perspective, and in terms of the sound being produced by the band. I've watched quite a bit of live Cure, and yet as this concert got underway, I was just struck anew by what a fabulous live band this lot is. They could play bands half their age into the ground. They sound even better than they did on Trilogy nearly 20 years ago. They haven't become caricatures of themselves and show that you can be a person, so far over and above being an age.
I enjoy a lot of good live music, but there's something about this band that just hits the stratosphere for me in a way that other contemporary bands usually do not. The Cure live is very like our ACO live - the Australian Chamber Orchestra also, at least when I saw them, was just dead impressive with their musicianship and the chemistry and communication between the players; with the extraordinary sounds they kept coming up with; with how that transferred to the audience.
The Cure don't play like most contemporary bands - they play more like chamber orchestras do, cooperatively to make a sound that's a whole, rather than playing bit-parts. They create soundscapes you can immerse yourself in, and conjure up so much with this. It is such a thoroughly enjoyable experience to hear what they do live on stage.
It's the first time we've seen a Cure gig that started in actual daylight. You can really understand why once they begin they often go on for long periods of time by peer standards.
I'll have to append this tomorrow, eyes falling shut!
Wait til you see Curaetion 25 - it's even better :). Watched it last night, and I think I love it more than The Trilogy film as well. Might even be tied with Show as the best Cure live document
Hello
@jestoon425, welcome to the forum, and Merry Christmas! 🎄 :)
Last night we left off after
The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, and right now I just feel like rewinding and watching again from the start (and having an evening where we start early enough to actually finish the whole concert). It's like when you read a really good book and when you get to the last page, you just want to start all over again. :cool
We're looking forward to all of it and it's nice to know the high standard is going to continue.
If you do an Intro post in the New Members section, by the way, we could get to know you a little better and then it's easier to treat people on a page like real human beings! :)
Quote from: SueC on December 26, 2019, 00:44:18Hello @jestoon425, welcome to the forum, and Merry Christmas! 🎄 :)
Last night we left off after The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, and right now I just feel like rewinding and watching again from the start (and having an evening where we start early enough to actually finish the whole concert). It's like when you read a really good book and when you get to the last page, you just want to start all over again. :cool
We're looking forward to all of it and it's nice to know the high standard is going to continue.
If you do an Intro post in the New Members section, by the way, we could get to know you a little better and then it's easier to treat people on a page like real human beings! :)
Oooh Thank you Sue. I know exactly what you mean. And especially when it's The Cure - the music lends itself very nicely to repeated listening :). Merry Christmas!
The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea is a great place to leave off. Though I'm not sure I could sleep right after that one ;). Might have to meditate to "A Thousand Hours" or "Siamese Twins" to wind down haha
Oh haha, you are funny! :lol: Maybe you could also meditate to One Hundred Years or Babble or - I'm sorry, it's 38 degrees C here today and my brain is affected, so half my recall, including of suitable songs, is missing, and I know there's even more highly suitable meditation-friendly stuff! ;) For now, I'm trying to keep my short-term memory alive so I can finish the response post up there properly...
By the way, my husband actually curled up like a kitten and fell asleep during The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea last night, and it's one of his favourite songs! :) (Although on further questioning lately, he's never really heard half the lyrics - he's less into that aspect of sung music than I am.) Anyway, I thought I was going to need to get the wheelbarrow to transport him to bed! :rofl
Upadate: I'm officially hooked on Curaetion 25. What a magical viewing experience :angel
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EM1V9FoUUAA6XhK?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
Well, we're just about to watch the second half of the Hyde Park concert - having started too late in the night on Christmas night. :) However, I want to start from the beginning - since we're doing a daytime viewing this time - and it sort of feels wrong to start in the middle, plus the first half was so good I'd like to see it again anyway. :cool
I've seen Disintegration from the other disc though and it's very well done. :smth023
What I don't get is how they actually managed to improve on Trilogy, which itself was fabulous. Brett thinks it's having nearly two decades more practice... hahaha. :beaming-face
As a teenager I was not a fan of Just Like Heaven which was all over the radio back then (or The Cure in general- had I heard things like The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea or Fascination Street or Trust or Fear Of Ghosts or other things like that, I would have formed a very different view of this band back then, but I didn't) - but live it's fine, and I appreciate that it's played with more of an edge to it these days and the guitar is less treacly (thankyou Reeves Gabrels). It's interesting how even songs I actually dislike when I hear the studio versions transform live, and then I actually don't dislike them anymore.
Quote from: SueC on December 26, 2019, 06:32:53By the way, my husband actually curled up like a kitten and fell asleep during The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea last night, and it's one of his favourite songs! :)
"Kitten as a cat? *meow*" ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBkY0xCLa0Q
Quote from: SueC on December 28, 2019, 03:40:27Well, we're just about to watch the second half of the Hyde Park concert - having started too late in the night on Christmas night. :) However, I want to start from the beginning - since we're doing a daytime viewing this time - and it sort of feels wrong to start in the middle, plus the first half was so good I'd like to see it again anyway. :cool
I've seen Disintegration from the other disc though and it's very well done. :smth023
What I don't get is how they actually managed to improve on Trilogy, which itself was fabulous. Brett thinks it's having nearly two decades more practice... hahaha. :beaming-face
As a teenager I was not a fan of Just Like Heaven which was all over the radio back then (or The Cure in general- had I heard things like The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea or Fascination Street or Trust or Fear Of Ghosts or other things like that, I would have formed a very different view of this band back then, but I didn't) - but live it's fine, and I appreciate that it's played with more of an edge to it these days and the guitar is less treacly (thankyou Reeves Gabrels). It's interesting how even songs I actually dislike when I hear the studio versions transform live, and then I actually don't dislike them anymore.
That version of Disintegration <3. Pretty much puts to bed any notions of Jason Cooper being a "bad" drummer. He's up there with Boris now :)
Don't get me started on that,
@jestoon425. I never had a problem with Jason Cooper as a drummer, and when we were watching the Hyde Park concert, both of us were watching that closely and concluding that certain people need their head examining.
Quote from: jestoon425 on December 28, 2019, 03:41:40Quote from: SueC on December 26, 2019, 06:32:53By the way, my husband actually curled up like a kitten and fell asleep during The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea last night, and it's one of his favourite songs! :)
"Kitten as a cat? *meow*" ;)
I am afraid I need to post an erratum. :lol: Brett was displeased to be referred to in that language in public, so for the record, he's officially a growly bear. :cool We both agree on that (he's a very cute growly bear, but don't tell him I said that! :lol:).
(https://live.staticflickr.com/7313/27302159640_5628da99c8_k.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/HAAGSm)
Growly bear in natural habitat with growly bear-sized mug of tea
...OK, something I'm noticing about the setlist on starting again from the beginning. Last time we noticed that there was a sandwiching of less generally well-known songs between more well-known songs, and it makes sense to play a concert for the whole mix of fans in this way. It's a Mary Poppins principle, if you're trying to bend the ears of the fans of the more radio-friendly stuff towards the more serious music. But today it struck me that there is also this alternation between no-complications love songs, and love songs dealing with conflict and discord, for at least the first 11 songs. It's one of one, one of the other; and then two of one (Push and In-Between Days) and two of the other (Just Like Heaven, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep which I do see as not beset by particular complications and I'm happy to discuss it, and anything else).
Second time around, I'm even more appreciative of how this was filmed, because I'm noticing more - and isn't that stage just gorgeous, with the oaks framing it and making a canopy above! :heart-eyes
Quote from: SueC on December 28, 2019, 06:41:34...OK, something I'm noticing about the setlist on starting again from the beginning. Last time we noticed that there was a sandwiching of less generally well-known songs between more well-known songs, and it makes sense to play a concert for the whole mix of fans in this way. It's a Mary Poppins principle, if you're trying to bend the ears of the fans of the more radio-friendly stuff towards the more serious music. But today it struck me that there is also this alternation between no-complications love songs, and love songs dealing with conflict and discord, for at least the first 11 songs. It's one of one, one of the other; and then two of one (Push and In-Between Days) and two of the other (Just Like Heaven, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep which I do see as not beset by particular complications and I'm happy to discuss it, and anything else).
Second time around, I'm even more appreciative of how this was filmed, because I'm noticing more - and isn't that stage just gorgeous, with the oaks framing it and making a canopy above! :heart-eyes
The way it was filmed adds to the experience 100%. I've seen great Cure performances before on bootleg live streams, and while the music was great, the visuals were always a bit anemic. Both of these films remind us of what The Cure offer visually <3.
Btw, I did a little review of both films on my blog;
https://criminallyunderratedrecords.blogspot.com/2019/12/what-great-collection-this-is.html
That's a well-written, interesting piece,
@jestoon425 - thanks for sharing! :cool
Potted history before the next bit: Brett became interested in The Cure when he heard
Burn in the soundtrack watching
The Crow in the cinema in 1994 and he eventually bought
Paris because of it, to dip his toes into their music and see what else they did - he tends to buy a live album when he's trying out a "new" band. He liked that, and went and bought
Show, and later on
Bloodflowers and a best-of. I became interested when Brett lent me his iPod five years ago for some outdoors work and I was scrolling through artists and surprised (because of the poppy image I had in my head) that he listened to The Cure. I put on
Bloodflowers and my jaw just hit the ground... (now making my way through the back catalogue)
So that's to say: We have the live recordings of
Show and
Paris - but not the films; neither of us go that far back historically as fans. Do we have homework?
Quote from: SueC on December 29, 2019, 01:35:23That's a well-written, interesting piece, @jestoon425 - thanks for sharing! :cool
Potted history before the next bit: Brett became interested in The Cure when he heard Burn in the soundtrack watching The Crow in the cinema in 1994 and he eventually bought Paris because of it, to dip his toes into their music and see what else they did - he tends to buy a live album when he's trying out a "new" band. He liked that, and went and bought Show, and later on Bloodflowers and a best-of. I became interested when Brett lent me his iPod five years ago for some outdoors work and I was scrolling through artists and surprised (because of the poppy image I had in my head) that he listened to The Cure. I put on Bloodflowers and my jaw just hit the ground... (now making my way through the back catalogue)
So that's to say: We have the live recordings of Show and Paris - but not the films; neither of us go that far back historically as fans. Do we have homework?
Thanks Sue! Let me clarify one little thing; Only
Show was filmed.
Paris is only a live album. The live album of
Show is the soundtrack from the film :). I would definitely recommend hunting down a Laserdisc rip of
Show as it's one of the best concert documentaries I've ever seen. Some great shots of Boris too, which is impressive since he's usually way in the back on footage from his time as drummer.
Thanks for clarifying that! :) We feel like we're on an archaeological dig. ;) So is the film for Show no longer commercially available?
Quote from: SueC on December 29, 2019, 02:46:57So is the film for Show no longer commercially available?
No, so far it has not been re-released on dvd (or bluray).
With luck you can find a VHS copy on Ebay or somewhere... (or just watch it on yt).
Back in the 90's I really enjoyed the "Show" video, because it was from the Wish tour and I'd seen one concert from that tour (Oct. '92), thus on video it looked similar to the show I'd experienced (the setlist wasn't the same, of course).
Thank you for the information,
@Ulrich. I promise my next post will be back to the exact topic! :angel
Finally got around to watching the first half of the Curætion-25 gig last night and we both enjoyed that enormously. To be honest, I was half expecting to be bored at the start because I'm not a huge fan of their earliest music (studio stuff, anyways) but I really wasn't, it was fantastic. I tend anyway to prefer The Cure's music live - it takes on extra dimensions, is imbued with life and immediacy etc, plus they can do that AND sound technically better than in the studio at the same time, so wow... and it's just amazing to watch them put their music together in real time, just a bunch of people and their instruments...magic.
There's something viscerally comforting about the rhythm section at the core of this band - bass and drums just seep into you like some sort of auditory vitamin infusion; the low range drapes over you like a warm blanket on a cold day; your brain engages on this subterranean level, away from the usual cerebral stuff, and you just are. It's very much the backbone of this music and carries everything else - splendid guitars working in with this, keyboards woven through, vocals floating around, sometimes not for quite a while because it's not the be-all and end-all of all this, and that's excellent...
We were talking about how this concert was shot, compared with the Hyde Park gig - the latter made us feel almost as if we were there; this one feels more like a documentary about the band. Starting on the old TV screen dimensions for the first song, and that old video feel, took us back in time with it, although Brett was already saying, "OK, I just hope they don't do the whole gig like this!" But they didn't...
A little wish, and I wonder if some others would like this too: I wish for optional subtitles on concert films, in the little black bar beneath the film so as not to interfere with the footage. It would allow a person to immediately get a better handle on the lyrics of unfamiliar material. I find it so frustrating to only catch snatches of the words, as happens in some songs (and it's not just me, Brett actually has even more trouble making out what is being sung); even just missing out a word in a line immediately becomes so unpleasant and makes it even harder to attend to what's next as the brain scrambles to keep up. Maybe it's because I'm an avid reader, but if I watch a film with the subtitles on, I've already grasped what is being said well before the sentence is even out of a person's mouth, and I'm thinking about the implications while watching the body language and tone in which the sentence is delivered - instead of wondering what on earth that person just said, as can happen with broad regional accents, or mumbled delivery, or background noise - and while this may in part be becoming exacerbated by age-related hearing loss, I've always preferred to turn subtitles on when the subject material is complex or the words aren't 100% crystal clear (and BBC and ITV drama productions tend to do well in this regard - there it's not so confounding).
It's very un-fun to have to stop and rewind film footage to work out the words, or to try to sit there with a lyric sheet splitting one's attention between a piece of paper and a screen, or to get the impression that you have to study up before you watch a concert, just to catch the words. It's a problem with some genres more than others, some singers more than others, some songs more than others, some listeners and their brain construction and the importance of lyrics to them more than others. Anyway, with the lyrics already available in written form, it would be a simple thing to add optional subtitles to concert footage.
So I sit there getting frustrated, and Brett says after a while he just gives up, and just focuses on the music, and they might as well be singing in Swahili, and more's the pity because he'd quite like to know what is actually being said in the material we're less familiar with. So yeah, optional subtitles would be excellent...
I've work to do and will add to this when I get some time / when we watch the second half etc. ;)
Oops, I forgot I still hadn't done Part 2 here at the time, but I've just listened to the whole thing again, on audio, and I will second the comments by various people around the place that the sound quality on the Blu-Ray/DVDs is so much better than on the audio-only CDs which accompany it in our box set. One person thought that was a bit of a theme, and you can translate him with a web tool if you don't speak German:
Quote from: undefinedMeine Rezension bezieht sich auf die Deluxe Edition. Zwei BluRay und 4 CDs. Enthalten sind das Curaetion 25 Konzert und das Anniversary Konzert. Soundqualität ist für Cure-Verhältnisse sehr gut, wobei es auf der CD teilweise etwas arg übersteuert klingt. Aber wer sich schon durch diverse Cure-Bootlegs in seinem Leben durchgehört hat, dürfte sich dennoch freuen.
Another one, from a different Amazon page:
Quote from: undefinedOnly giving this a 4 out of 5 due to the poor quality audio mix on the Curaetion audio CD's. The picture/audio quality on both Blu-Ray discs as well as the Anniversary audio CD's are fantastic; however the Curaetion CD's are mixed like a big block of sound losing all of their nuance and subtlety, and that's being played on an excellent stereo system. I've heard a 50/50 mix online from folks with similar issues which makes me wonder if there were two source files being ripped onto the discs? Anyway, other than audio CD quality on two of the discs, this thing is beautiful.
Yep, that's a common problem in music, especially since the loudness wars. There's also far better sound on our copy of
Trilogy than on our copy of the studio album
Disintegration - we had
Trilogy first, and when we ordered in
Disintegration, I wondered if we had some kind of pirate copy because so much sound was missing off it. It wasn't the era - the loudness wars weren't a big factor yet in 1989; Suzanne Vega's 1985 and 1987 CDs are so crystal clear and have a super dynamic range, like quite a few 80s CDs. Brett is chipping in here to say that 1) she never jumped on the bandwagon that was all about being loud, and 2) the palette of instruments and sounds is quite pared-down and sparse on a lot of her songs.
@Matti explained to me on CF a while back that the reason
Lullaby sounded clipped to me when I gave
Disintegration its first spin is that I'd been used to hearing the single version, which was mixed/mastered differently.
(By the way, our copy of
KMKMKM sounds great - does not have the lack of dynamic range of our copy of
Disintegration.)
The eternal grumble of some of us is that CDs have gone downhill sonically on the whole, and most of the contemporary music concerts you go to, you get your ears blown off so that you can't really enjoy the sound very much. Well, at least there's still concert DVDs etc.
Anyway, getting back to Curætion, I thought that the format of going forwards and then backwards playing a song each off each of the Cure studio albums was especially useful for a comparatively new fan like me, who's still coming to grips with some of the back catalogue - it's a nice bit of contextualisation, and it showcases the band's evolution.
One of the things I'm trying to reconcile is that I love almost everything I hear this band do live, but was very underwhelmed with CD-1 of
Join the Dots. It makes me almost afraid to go near the band's first four studio albums, but alas, today we've ordered in
Pornography, which we've already heard in its entirety on
Trilogy - the comparison between live and studio will be interesting - and also, there's going to be a straight comparison with the self-titled album, which is the last gap we have in their more recent albums, because we've ordered that at the same time.
The first four songs of the Curætion gig present no problems at all for me (mind you, I'm only catching about half the lyrics and listening more like
@MAtT says he listens - easy to do when you're preoccupied with the sound and the big picture and aren't sitting there with a verbal magnifying glass).
Three Imaginary Boys is a nice warm-up song for an audience, or at least for this little fraction of the audience anyway. I really like the way that's been put together musically, excellent interaction between bass and drums especially, and as a song it's got simplicity and complexity both... it sounds kind of anthemic, and it says, "Hullo, wake up, this is a gig - and one you're going to like!"
At Night I'd already heard on
Paris etc.
Other Voices was new to me - it has a fabulous bass line and wonderful, chamber-quartet-like interplay between bass and other guitars, as so many Cure songs do. ♥
Other particular musical highlights of Part 1 for me were
A Night Like This,
Like Cockatoos,
Pictures Of You,
Jupiter Crash, and
It Can Never Be The Same. (And though it's a shockingly noisy song, I actually do have a place in my heart for
It's Over as well, after engaging with it for a bit for a journalling exercise (http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9295.msg773073#msg773073)...)
Us Or Them was a new one to me - if I were to just take the music of this as an instrumental, I wouldn't nominate it as a favourite, but in combination with the (clearly enunciated) lyrics it's a different story - how else would you present these words? - the sound makes total sense, given the words. This song, taken as a whole, made a big impression on me - like a dark fraternal twin to
Imagine, born in the next millennium, in which sadly, nothing much seems to have come of the love-and-peace ideas of the 1960s; it's as if that never happened, when you look at the world now. This song is a sort of catharsis for the disappointment of that, for me. It's also way more angry than flower power, and I think the anger in this case is appropriate... anger that says, "Hello, this isn't right!" and provides some energy for changing things, because we neither can nor should always be accepting.
I love this song, the album is on its way to our house, and I'm undoubtedly going to write reams in response to its lyrics... ♥ Every now and then a song comes along that puts into words and sound something you've felt for a long, long time yourself, but never articulated as clearly.
It Can Never Be The Same and
Step Into The Light are the axis around which this concert turns to retrace its trip through the years, two "new" songs, relatively speaking, which didn't make it onto an album but which I think are excellent, and already wrote about here (http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9295.msg773221#msg773221). If the quality of these is in any way indicative of the album in the works, we should be in for a big, big treat when it's finally released.
The backtrack starts with
The Hungry Ghost, which is another conceptual favourite of mine I've waxed lyrical about previously (http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9295.msg772428#msg772428). I don't know much about the next one -
Alt.End - as yet and can't make out the lyrics easily, so I'll wait for the album to get to our mailbox before getting the magnifying glass out - but on a human note, the way Robert Smith ends that song in this performance makes me smile, and makes my heart do a little leap, because there's so much misery and so many broken dreams in this world that it's really nice to hear someone in the second half of life express happiness over what life has so far held for them.
(
Alt.End is starting to seep in and make sense, and seems to me to be a good fit for what lots of people feel when they burn out. I'll look at it properly on Exploring the Back Catalogue (http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=9295.0) when the relevant studio album gets here (they're guessing sometime in November); and I'll have another look at
The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea when
WIsh arrives (~first week of November) - it struck me again today just listening through that set how well The Cure paint heartbreak in musical form with songs like that one,
Disintegration etc.)
Bloodflowers is my favourite Cure album, and though the musical intro to
The Last Day Of Summer is really beautiful and the song would, like many Cure songs, make a decent stand-alone instrumental (this is not a criticism of the lyrics or singing in this song, just a compliment on carefully crafted music - many songs you hear in general wouldn't work without the sung part), I'm always seeming to hear this one and
39 in live sets, and not any of the other fabulous tracks off this album. We'd both love to hear
Watching Me Fall live, for instance; Brett is particularly keen to hear the title track live, and I,
Where The Birds Always Sing,
There Is No If and
The Loudest Sound - and so far, we've only heard these on
Trilogy. (Brett did actually go to this concert (https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-cure/2000/perth-entertainment-centre-perth-australia-3d7e5ef.html) before he acquired
Bloodflowers but says it was all new to him, and he'd like to hear that again now he's familiar with it.)
One song that really pops out for me when played live is
Sinking - fabulous construction, and fabulous sound; and in this set, it is no less superlative than a perennial favourite of ours,
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep...
In fact, with the Curætion set, it's much harder for me to pick favourites than with the usual festival gigs, because they're not playing their "radio songs" here... as was the case with the Opera House gig last year...
One surprise for me from this particular concert was really liking
Primary, for the first time in my life. It's distinctly different to the way it was played here (http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=1367.msg771965#msg771965), 34 years earlier. I remember playing that and other early performances through repeatedly and just not warming to it even slightly. The version they've played here, I enjoy both the instrumental side and the vocal performance, which I think is so much better than it was in the earlier version. It's funny how a song can be the same song, and not be. The differences may be subtle-ish, but one I enjoy very much, and the other I still just don't.
All in all, this is one of the best concerts I've ever seen from anyone, really impressive - which is also how I felt about the Hyde Park concert, last year's live-streamed Sydney Opera House performance, and
Trilogy, which are the main Cure concert films we've got at our house. Each of these four is quite different, but excellent. And to think I had no idea about any of this until a handful of years ago... it's simply not an impression I could form from what mainstream radio plays of this band, when mainstream radio is piped at you in a supermarket and you forgot your earplugs again.