Boys Don't Cry & Keyboards

[Dillinger]

i dont have a huge problem, not having them in just like heaven is worse

[Bloodflower]

Boys Don't Cry definitely doesn't need three guitars, a tambourine, or keyboards. I really do wish the band would have some keyboards, though; it's not like Porl is incapable of playing them.... Or Robert, for that matter. I think the Wish Tour lineup had it best.

Robert - Voices, Guitars, Basses
Simon - Basses(, Guitars?)
Perry - Keyboards, Guitars
Porl - Guitars(, Keyboards, Basses?)
Boris - Drums

[Oso Blanco]

I think the Wish Tour lineup had it best.

What I didn't like about this lineup is Perry playing a third guitar. Apart from the fact that he's not that great a player, having three guitars on stage is just too much for The Cure. I wish he had stayed to his keyboards, but he wasn't that great a keyboarder either.

My favorite lineup is the Robert/Simon/Porl/Boris/Roger one, which sadly existed only too briefly.

[revolt]

I might be alone on this, but I actually find that tambourine thing quite funny. Yeah, it's totally unnecessary and ridiculous, but in a way it is also very Cureish, I think... Like that playback show with Banarama: it's stupid but why shouldn't you do it as long as you're having fun?

As for the need of keyboards on BDC, I agree that there's no place for them there. Some songs just don't sound as good when you add keyboards to them. But nowadays we are actually falling in the opposite side of things, since a lot of songs on the Cure repertoire DO NEED keyboards and they are being played without them...

[japanesebaby]

I might be alone on this, but I actually find that tambourine thing quite funny. Yeah, it's totally unnecessary and ridiculous, but in a way it is also very Cureish, I think...

ok i've already establilshed myself as an anti-tambourine person  so i could just as well shut up by now. anyway, i'll just say that imo tambourine is not cure-ish. kazoo is cure-ish because it's funny in a silly/weird way. tambourine is just something people grab when they don't have anything meaningless to play but they insist on playing something. it's useless, like you said. on the other hand, kazoo on 'the walk' on the unplugged session was cure-ish because it was funny but it was not useless: it was not just someone killing time but it also added something interesting (surprising and funny new sound source) to the musical output.
so i'd say that's something cure-ish.

[revolt]

ok i've already establilshed myself as an anti-tambourine person 

I wonder what you think of that Bob Dylan 60's song, the one that goes "Hey Mr. Tambourine Man..."... 

tambourine is just something people grab when they don't have anything meaningless to play but they insist on playing something. it's useless, like you said.

Most of the time, it's musically useless, yes. But there are occasions when the tambourine is a relevant part of the song's rhythm... I was thinking of that Siouxsie's "Pulled to Bits" Nocturne version that I posted here sometime ago, for instance... No time to check it again now, but I think that was a good example.

Then, probably it is better to just grab the tambourine and pretend you are playing it than do other potentially more offensive stuff. Back in 1979-1980, in those Cure songs that didn't require keyboards, apparently on some occasions Matthieu Hartley just sat down and read the newspaper on stage...