The Cure
2023-05-23
Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles, CA

SOURCE:
SP-CMC-8 (w/Mods) > Sony PCM-A10 > Sandisk Mini-SD Card (32gb – Class 10)

TRANSFER:
.WAV (24 Bit) > Adobe Audition 2023 CC (normalize/amplify/tracking) > Trader’s Little Helper > FLAC (Level 6)

SETLIST:

1. Intro
2. Alone
3. Pictures of You
4. A Night Like This
5. Lovesong
6. And Nothing is Forever
7. The Last Day of Summer
8. A Fragile Thing
9. Burn
10. Another Happy Birthday
11. Charlotte Sometimes
12. Push
13. Primary
14. Shake Dog Shake
15. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
16. Endsong
17. (encore break #1)

— ENCORE #1 —

18. I Can Never Say Goodbye
19. It Can Never Be the Same
20. A Thousand Hours
21. At Night
22. A Forest
23. (encore break #2)

— ENCORE #2 —

24. Lullaby
25. Six Different Ways
26. The Walk
27. Friday I’m in Love
28. Doing the Unstuck
29. Close to Me
30. In Between Days
31. Just Like Heaven
32. Boys Don’t Cry
33. Outro

NOTES:

What’s a better encore to Cruel World (err, more like an encore to Cruel World’s own encore, so an encore to an encore?) than seeing The Cure a couple days later? Yeah I can’t think of anything better either, so here we are! I, like everyone else probably, failed to get tickets when they first went on sale (even with THREE Hollywood Bowl dates, I was completely shut out – I smell something fishy there), so I had to be patient and keep checking back on Ticketmaster every so often. I was about to give up until I read about some Firefox extension that would help refresh TM’s page every few seconds for whatever event date you wanted, so I set it to run on all three days, and the first and only date that had a ticket pop up that I was able to purchase was for Tuesday. Works for me.

This was my third time seeing the Cure, and the first time since their Pasadena Daydream performance back in 2019. My seat was rather decent, in section G2, though it became apparent I was in the senior citizen section, as no one in that section wanted to stand up. And when I did stand up, for “Pictures of You”, one of my favorite songs, I was “heckled” to sit down near the end. Then a couple songs later, duing “Lovesong”, when multiple people near me stood up, I stood up again, and then sat back down for a slower song and immediately heard the “Thanks, I can see again asshole!”. I flipped the bird and then they barked back. Gosh, I really do hope that by standing, I ruined their first concert ever. Fucking douchebags. Sorry, maybe my concert etiquette is far different than others, given I do a lot of festivals, but if you want to stand, then fucking stand. Who cares? Now if we’re discussing these idiots talking during the show? Well that’s a whole other issue. But standing? Pff, gimme a fucking break. Here’s a big FUCK YOU to all the crybabies in G2. I’d almost not want to release this recording, just to spite those dickheads behind me.

Anyway, back to the show. I thought it sounded great. I was so glad they chose the Hollywood Bowl rather Staples (or Crypto or whatever the fuck it’s called now) or Kia Forum. I generally like the Bowl and its sound, so no complaints there. It was pretty cool that they had some sounds of thunder and rain coming through the PA before they took the stage. They eventually started flashing the stage lights like it was lightning, and for a split second I had terrible flashbacks to Cruel World on Saturday night, thinking actual lightning was in the area and this show was going to get cancelled. But no, it was just Robert fucking with us all.

They played a lot of the hits, skipped a lot of the hits, and played some new stuff, including the debut of “Another Happy Birthday”. I actually think the new song “And Nothing is Forever” is the best sounding song out of all the new stuff, by a mile. I was blown away by that one. Robert said they all had a “bug” and that he was probably patient zero. That might explain why everyone but Robert looked fucking bored out of their minds on stage. Roger O’Donnell looked like he was auditioning for a new Weekend At Bernie’s. I swear, he makes Gilian Gilbert of New Order look like a raving lunatic on stage in comparison. Here’s hoping it was just that “bug”…