The Cure face into 2019 with what may be their most exciting year of recent times whilst giving the fans everything they have wished for.
“I think people admire us, even if they don’t particularly get the music”.-Robert Smith
On the back of this year’s successful fortieth-anniversary show with the very well received Hyde Park concert in London, which presented the band with a new leash of life as they blasted through a twenty-nine song set.
At the time however news slowly filtered through surrounding the band booking studio time, which has now been confirmed, The Cure will release their first album in over a decade in 2019.Since the start of October with the string of European dates were announced by The Cure to peak excitement, some, including the Dublin show at Malahide castle sold out within three-hours, showing the fan base for the band which is still as strong as ever.
This month though things took a twist as all Cure fans got an early Christmas present. It was announced on December-13th that the band are being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for 2019 in March.
With this announcement, frontman Robert Smith used it as the launch pad to break the news that The Cure are returning to the studio in six-weeks to put the finishing touches to album number fourteen, the follow up to 2008’s “4:13 Dream”. Of course there is another factor to get excited about, this will be the first album to feature Bowie-sideman Reeves Gabrels who will bring his unique, ambient-blast of screaming guitar to proceedings. The pairing of Gabrels and Smith should make for a very interesting album indeed.
To wet your appetite, the 40th anniversary show set list from the eight-of-July;
“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”
Encore:
“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”
Check out the below clip which shows Gabrels in full feedback mode.
Kevin Burke Dec 2018
