24/05/1980
play for today
three imaginary boys
in your house
fire in cairo
10.15 saturday night
m
at night
accuracy
jumping someone else's train
another journey by train
grinding halt
a forest
seventeen seconds extra lyric/outro
plastic passion
boys don't cry
killing an arab
and this is a good document from the 1980 tour! good recording w/some crisp sounding drums and a nice mix of the other instruments (good highs, lows and all) and vocals...super for 1980, quite nice.
the boys start off w/the instrumental opener ("a reflection") and then take right off w/"play for today," which is nice and well-rehearsed--good and grey...as is "three imaginary boys," and the following track, "in your house." it sounds really good, they get a feel and sound that they couldn't get before when they were touring w/the first record...more subtle and studied...
"fire in cairo" is nice, robert seems to pull back on guitar just a bit since matthieu's keyboards help fill out the sounds...but it sounds pretty good and the vocals especially feel good and strong. the crowd is pretty good and likes everything, "10.15 saturday night" follows to good applause..."m" starts off w/simon's bass line as an intro, like many of the early performances do--and the sound/performances continue to stay at a really high level--this is a really good recording!
"at night" is good, all the parts go back and forth and work really well..."accuracy" comes next, someone in the crowd shouted for it early on and the cure doesn't let them down. the one-two punch of "jumping someone else's train"/"another journey by train" comes next, and it really kicks and moves along nicely, some good work--very cool--aggressive pop. that continues into another early live favorite (judging from audiences) "grinding halt."
"a forest" comes next..."a forest" and "seventeen seconds" close the set really, and both are good performances. strong all the way round, "a forest" is sharp and very fresh--the long outro is excellent and laurence starts the drums on "seventeen seconds" right as simon's bass still rings from "a forest," so it's quite good--excellent stuff. and then in "seventeen seconds," robert adds a little extra lyric (still using the normal verse melodic line) on the outro..."you're so much taller than me, i walk by your side...so deeply entrenched, and i owe so much to you..."
the band comes back to encore w/some good pop stuff, first a good "plastic passion," then a great little tear thru "boys don't cry," and ending the show w/"killing an arab." really good!!
it seems like i give good reviews to a number of shows, but then again...maybe i'm lucky to have some really good recordings and find noteworthy things about lots of them. this doesn't have early working versions of new songs...no really weird performance notes...no medleys...but it's just a great/clean sounding 1980 recording of a great early cure performance, so this is still must-have =) a nice representative show from the tour supporting "seventeen seconds."