Antipodean greetings

[SueC]

Dear all

I really needed another forum (not), but here I am. 

Why am I here?  Well, The Cure did their Disintegration gigs at the Opera House recently, and neither of us could go, because we live across the Nullarbor from Sydney on a small organic farm and it's really hard to get reliable farmsitters for donkeys etc, never mind the chances of getting tickets allocated in the lottery.  But, they did that live stream, and we set up our lounge room for it and turned it up.  It was our type of gig, and I reviewed it on Reddit.

I'll repeat that here:

We were watching from Western Australia and honestly have no idea what anybody has been complaining about all week. Fabulous concert, and we, for one, really enjoy this side of The Cure, and would rather listen to any of the songs they played tonight than "Friday I'm In Love" - this was our kind of concert, and we had to laugh when Robert Smith talked about sticking to his guns about that, and that in an alternative universe, all these songs were hits anyway.

The warm-up was excellent and so was everything that followed. We don't necessarily love everything on Disintegration - most of it, we do - but because of the professionalism of this band, it wasn't a hardship to listen to anything they played all night. The encore set was tremendous - from "Burn" which both of us love to bits, right down to "Pirate Ships" which neither of us had heard before, but we heard the dissing from the critics all week, and it makes us think of those armchair critics in The Muppet Show. That was a beautiful song - and so nice to hear a musician singing something someone else wrote which they've liked. Robert Smith's voice was lovely on this - totally different style to what he normally does - and we had goosebumps. The critics can all go jump in the lake.

Also, we have a hypothesis at our house that Simon Gallup and Jason Cooper wear some kind of calorie counting gadgets and compete for most energy burned during the concert. Both of them are veritable poster children for the benefits of regular exercise. Reeves Gabrels suits very well as a Cure guitarist, and amuses us with his laid-backness and his sort of "Hey kids, let me help you out!" vibe. And it would drive both of us spare to have to stand up in the same spot all night like poor Roger O'Donnell, so he's probably more patient than we are.

Lights and backdrops A1 and never annoying, and it's rare we can say that. It's like these people study how to make things beautiful visually. Very happy that this event was streamed live. <3

PS: If you like this comment, you can read another 7,000 words here. Bwahahaha. But what would we know, we're just a bunch of hippies. :-P http://sue.coulstock.id.au/music-reviews-get-curiouser-and-curiouser/


I did that because all week there'd been moaning on various media, and The Guardian, and on Reddit, and when we saw the live stream we honestly couldn't figure out what the problem was, other than in the heads of the people doing the complaining.

I hung around the Cure subreddit for a bit and noticed it was peopled significantly by two sorts of "fans" that I find grating: 

1) The kind that diss every "non-original" band member, that wasn't on the poster they had up in their rooms as teenagers apparently, and constantly criticise their musicianship and existence - like some of the land aristocracy in our district think you will never be a local if you've not lived here 40 years and have your offspring marry theirs (yawn, next please).  These are also generally the people that don't (yet?) see the difference between "I personally dislike..." and "This is total crap and has no merit" - and don't understand that people have different tastes in music, which is a really personal thing, and that we all bring different life experiences to music, literature etc, which make some things particularly meaningful to us and others not.

2) The kind that incessantly post photos of Robert Smith in his 20s and go goopy over them.  I mean, really?

So, I'm dipping my toes in here to see if I can occasionally get into some courteous and interesting discussions with others on this music, without tripping over hordes of the above two subtypes keen to tell me I know nothing because Bloodflowers is one of my favourite albums of all time.

And where's the ROFLMAO emoji on this forum? 

Like this: https://www.horseforum.com/images/smilies/rofl.gif

...it has so many applications, as does a TARDIS emoji.   

Best wishes to everyone

Sue

[PearlThompsonsBloodflower]

Hello there!

[SueC]

Hello back!  :-)  How's life in Somewhere?

[dsanchez]

The kind that incessantly post photos of Robert Smith in his 20s and go goopy over them.  I mean, really?

Welcome to curefans.com! there are/were some other forums (specially the official thecure.com forum which thankfully does not longer exists) where most of the topics were about Robert's hair, how good looking Simon and lots of meaningless topics (we have a few, of course, but is not the norm here). I am proud to say curefans.com is different and you will find here lots of very interesting discussions that happened since we founded the forum back in 2005. Although several long-time members not longer come here (most of them got trapped in the social media frenzy -mainly FB and Instagram- and now spend their time there, and others, well, probably life just changed for them and Cure is not longer a relevant topic), curefans.com is still active, and hopefully you will like it here

[SueC]

Well, that's nice to hear, @dsanchez !    For me, The Cure is a relatively recent discovery (on a grand scale anyway) - courtesy of my husband's music library.  So I didn't go through that teenage stage of having their posters up on my wall, and it's actually really nice to be able to come to a fabulous band with so much amazing material in the back catalogue when you're no longer doing teenage identity formation type stuff, and you don't feel the need to pass out over people's attractive appearances, or to consider every young-ish person of the gender(s) you are attracted to, whether on the bus or on television etc, on a sexual level / as marriage material.

So I was a bit aghast to find some people were still stuck in that stage with The Cure, now that everyone who was a teenager in the 80s is at or past midlife.

Discovering The Cure was the musical equivalent (quality-wise) of discovering Haruki Murakami, also courtesy of my husband's library... You listen to / read a good one, and then discover that there are CDs / books going way back!  Big, big treat in both instances!      Sort of like discovering a huge removalist's box of chocolates in your attic, that don't go off!

[Ulrich]

Why am I here?  Well, The Cure did their Disintegration gigs at the Opera House recently, and neither of us could go, because we live across the Nullarbor from Sydney on a small organic farm and it's really hard to get reliable farmsitters for donkeys etc, never mind the chances of getting tickets allocated in the lottery.  But, they did that live stream, and we set up our lounge room for it and turned it up.

If I'd known this, I'd have said "I'll do it" (okay, I have no experience in donkey-sitting, but it's not rocket science). 
You would only have had to send me a flight ticket (return, preferably) and then the one day I'd be at the farm and you'd go to the gig and then you'd return and I'd go... (well, at least I can dream...) 

[SueC]

Ah, but can you deal with this?

[PearlThompsonsBloodflower]

Hello back!  :-)  How's life in Somewhere?

Life is good in somewhere.

That somewhere being in Italy, actually. The Cure used to be my favorite band, still good but not my favorite anymore.

The Beatles/Maroon 5, then it was Cheap Trick, then Rush, then The Cure, then Talk Talk, and now R.E.M. All great music.

[SueC]

Hello back!  :-)  How's life in Somewhere?

Life is good in somewhere.

That somewhere being in Italy, actually. The Cure used to be my favorite band, still good but not my favorite anymore.

The Beatles/Maroon 5, then it was Cheap Trick, then Rush, then The Cure, then Talk Talk, and now R.E.M. All great music.

Oh, in Italy! So you eat well, no?  I'm originally European:  Mostly German, partly Italian - although that part seems to have given me the foodie disposition and craze for feeding people.  Up to age 11 I spent 3 months per year in Malcesine, Lago di Garda - are you near that at all / have you visited?  I honestly miss Italy much more than Germany, the scenery was gorgeous, and our neighbours were so nice and we always seemed to be getting together for food frenzies.  And the best meal I've ever had in my life was Italian sausages and polenta grilled over a charcoal fire impromptu in the mountains by a neighbour who was a beekeeper, and took a few of us along for a woodcutting trip one day - that's what he made for lunch!  I can still taste it.

The best drink, milk straight from one of the cows kept by another neighbour whom I met because they had a donkey in their paddock (and this is why we now have donkeys ourselves, over three decades later).  The cow was grazing an Alpine pasture and you could taste all the herbs in the milk, just like you can taste all the flowers in real, raw wildflower honey - we now keep bees ourselves.  The best snack, wild blackberries growing up against the stone walls all over the neighbourhood...

I don't really have a favourite band; I have favourite bands / musicians across various genres and the list is as long as your arm.  I like REM too, especially Orange Crush (reminds me of being a university student) and of course Everybody Cries.  There's so much good music in the world, but I think the brain is sort of like a wardrobe and eventually it reaches capacity, which limits what else you can be open to when you want to be enjoying what you already love.

I'm curious as to how it works to be a fan of an English-speaking/singing band when it's not your first language.  (I'm assuming you are Italian.)  OK, it's not my first language either, but it may as well be because I made the switch early enough to assimilate it completely, and I've lived in an English-speaking culture since age 11 - so I was already thinking in English when I started to get really interested in music.  So how does that work for you?  Obviously you've got the school English... are lyrics important to you in music?  Is it the instrumentation that first draws you in, or is it a package?  Do you sit down with the lyric sheet?  (I do that with Gaelic music.  I only have a few handfuls of Gaelic, so I actually need to get translations, which thankfully are available easily online these days...)

(Anyone else non-English-culture, please feel free to tell me about it too!)

Say hi to Italy for me!

[Ulrich]

Ok, I can't play the trumpet, so I guess I'm out. 

The Cure is still one of my favourite bands (been listening since 1985, so I guess that means it will be "forever"), but I listen to tons of other music. 

[PearlThompsonsBloodflower]

Hello back!  :-)  How's life in Somewhere?

Life is good in somewhere.

That somewhere being in Italy, actually. The Cure used to be my favorite band, still good but not my favorite anymore.

The Beatles/Maroon 5, then it was Cheap Trick, then Rush, then The Cure, then Talk Talk, and now R.E.M. All great music.

Oh, in Italy! So you eat well, no?  I'm originally European:  Mostly German, partly Italian - although that part seems to have given me the foodie disposition and craze for feeding people.  Up to age 11 I spent 3 months per year in Malcesine, Lago di Garda - are you near that at all / have you visited?  I honestly miss Italy much more than Germany, the scenery was gorgeous, and our neighbours were so nice and we always seemed to be getting together for food frenzies.  And the best meal I've ever had in my life was Italian sausages and polenta grilled over a charcoal fire impromptu in the mountains by a neighbour who was a beekeeper, and took a few of us along for a woodcutting trip one day - that's what he made for lunch!  I can still taste it.

The best drink, milk straight from one of the cows kept by another neighbour whom I met because they had a donkey in their paddock (and this is why we now have donkeys ourselves, over three decades later).  The cow was grazing an Alpine pasture and you could taste all the herbs in the milk, just like you can taste all the flowers in real, raw wildflower honey - we now keep bees ourselves.  The best snack, wild blackberries growing up against the stone walls all over the neighbourhood...

I don't really have a favourite band; I have favourite bands / musicians across various genres and the list is as long as your arm.  I like REM too, especially Orange Crush (reminds me of being a university student) and of course Everybody Cries.  There's so much good music in the world, but I think the brain is sort of like a wardrobe and eventually it reaches capacity, which limits what else you can be open to when you want to be enjoying what you already love.

I'm curious as to how it works to be a fan of an English-speaking/singing band when it's not your first language.  (I'm assuming you are Italian.)  OK, it's not my first language either, but it may as well be because I made the switch early enough to assimilate it completely, and I've lived in an English-speaking culture since age 11 - so I was already thinking in English when I started to get really interested in music.  So how does that work for you?  Obviously you've got the school English... are lyrics important to you in music?  Is it the instrumentation that first draws you in, or is it a package?  Do you sit down with the lyric sheet?  (I do that with Gaelic music.  I only have a few handfuls of Gaelic, so I actually need to get translations, which thankfully are available easily online these days...)

(Anyone else non-English-culture, please feel free to tell me about it too!)

Say hi to Italy for me!

I am a vegetarian/Pescitarian depending on the day so I don't eat meat anymore but the occasional fish. I prefer Pasta and Pizza.
No I am American raised in America/Italy my whole life. Italy is like a second home to me. Though heritage wise I am mostly Irish and Eastern European.

Btw, it is Everybody Hurts not Everybody Cries though tbh Everybody Cries is a great song title name (I don't think anyone uses it but still)

[SueC]

I am a vegetarian/Pescitarian depending on the day so I don't eat meat anymore but the occasional fish. I prefer Pasta and Pizza.
No I am American raised in America/Italy my whole life. Italy is like a second home to me. Though heritage wise I am mostly Irish and Eastern European.

Btw, it is Everybody Hurts not Everybody Cries though tbh Everybody Cries is a great song title name (I don't think anyone uses it but still)

Yeah, that's the problem with thinking of song titles offhand when you're cross-eyed from posting!    My brain got back to me about it after I had logged off, and I went, "Oops!"  It does that.  It's like thinking of the perfect repartee five minutes after an interaction! 

So you've grown up with the ability to make firsthand comparisons between two different cultures.  Do you prefer any particular one?  I have to say, the thing I still miss about Italy is that Mediterranean people are a lot more social and warm on average than Anglo culture people.  I've compared notes here in Australia with people from Iran, from Greece, from Lebanon, whom I instantly gel with socially, and who all say to me, "Oh Sue, it's so cold here socially, we feel it too!"  Of course, in some parts of Australia where those cultures are well represented, things are much warmer!  Sydney, for example (depending on the part).  People actually talk to you on the ferries there!

[SueC]

Ok, I can't play the trumpet, so I guess I'm out. 

You don't need to be able to play it - just blowing through it would do it, or playing any kind of prolonged, insistent sound on any instrument capable of such a thing. 

You could also yodel, or do imitation donkey noises.  This also does the trick most of the time!