Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany29th October 2022
The Cure - “Euro Tour 2022” - Support: The Twilight Sad
THE CURE: The Olympic Thought - and a Record Playlist! The concert of THE CURE as part of the “Euro Tour 2022” began at 8:45 p.m. following the support act THE TWILIGHT SAD (Scotland) and a short break for conversion, which was accompanied by the sounds of continuous rain over the loudspeaker system.
For their fans, this was the best news of recent years: THE CURE are coming on an extensive European tour in 2022 - and they even planned to have a new, 67-minute studio album with them! Their impressive headlining shows in the festival summer of 2019 made it clear that THE CURE show no signs of tiring even more than 40 years after their founding in 1978. With an immense song selection from 13 studio albums, including pioneering works such as ‘Pornography’ (1983), ‘Disintegration’ (1989) and ‘Bloodflowers’ (2000) as well as over 40 worldwide single hits such as ‘A Forest’ and ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ or ‘Friday I’m In Love‹, the band around front man Robert Smith has always mastered how to make every concert a unique experience.
After countless awards, including the renowned Ivor Novello Award and two Grammy nominations, THE CURE were inducted into the “Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame” in 2019. In the same year, the band began recording new songs for their long-awaited 14th studio album, which has now been completed and will soon see the light of day. In October and November 2022, the band, consisting of singer and songwriter Robert Smith, Simon Gallup (bass), Jason Cooper (drums), Roger O’Donnell (keyboards) and Reeves Gabrels (guitars), are performing in Germany as part of their “Euro Tour 2022”!
Music & Performance
Robert Smith’s good humour was visible throughout the set. Just like during other shows on this tour... He thanked the audience politely and expressed his joy at finally being able to play in Munich again “after a long time”. It was noticeable that during some of the songs he only took on the vocals, but didn’t use his guitar, for example on the opener ‘Cold’ or on ‘Kyoto Song’, which rarely is played live. Relatively often for his (formerly always very cool and absolutely introverted) stage presence, this time he kept going to the edge of the stage to the left, right, forward to smile (!) at the audience and to let the audience celebrate him. His well-rehearsed and experienced band also did an excellent job during these songs as well for the rest of the set, all of them very calmly - except of course Simon Gallup, the enfant terrible on bass, constantly running around and on the move, but just as virtuous as his colleagues.
Both the acoustics and the optics of the show deserve special mention. There was a great concert feeling throughout the whole show. On the one hand, the songs were performed in a great sound and absolute studio quality, and on the other hand, you had a good feeling that the instruments were actually played live. The super sound and excellent instrumental performances were only surpassed by Robert’s singing and performance over the full 2 1/2 hours, full of ambition and yet absolutely relaxed, to the point and yet effortlessly virtuoso, expressive and crystal clear, his voice rose above the sound carpet, set nuances, stood out, was absolutely always outstandingly audible - and yet fitted perfectly into the overall musical picture or crowned it, a vocal performance worthy of the Olympics!
This great sound was created in the Olympiahalle - a sports hall built 50 years ago for gymnastics and handball competitions of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, which made it even more notable! This great acoustics was also staged visually very effectively: Five screens on the stage, together with the precisely coordinated light show, provided a great atmosphere as well as perfect background to the music and implementation of the content of the individual songs. For the visitors in the back seats of the hall, which had of course been sold out for a long time with 15,500 visitors, there were also two screens that also showed what was happening on the stage with all five musicians, from a very calm lead camera position.
The set list, which changed very dynamically during the first 3/4 of the concert on every evening of the tour and of course in Munich, was also record-breaking: in addition to the (planned) 28 songs (thus the “extended” version of the otherwise partly “only” 27 or 26 songs long set list), so to speak, another (in total 29th!) song was played: The “Happy Birthday” played by Robert and sung by the audience for the birthday child: keyboarder Roger O’Donnell (*29 October 1955 in London) at the beginning of the 2nd encore. And with the song ‘Faith’, which was played in the sound check in the afternoon only, but not during the show, it would have been 30 (!) songs that THE CURE played that day in Munich (‘Faith’ was last played on November 27th, 2011 in the Beacon Theatre, New York/USA, in Europe most recently on November 15, 2011 in the Royal Albert Hall in London/UK, in Germany most recently on August 28, 2005 at the Open Air - Kindl Bühne Wuhlheide in Berlin).
In addition, ‘Doing The Unstuck’ was a song that had not yet been heard on the previous sixteen shows of the “Euro Tour 2022” (it was last played before on July 4, 2019 at the Exit Festival on Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad / Serbia). Overall, the set list was very exciting, considering older rather than newer pieces. The big hits were a little rarer during the first 90 minutes of the show, but a real hit firework display followed at the end. Even new songs were played at the evening! Now we only need the new album! Overall, this was an equally individual and perfect concert experience of a live band playing like unleashed and a Robert Smith who is completely at peace with himself - at the absolute peak of his musical creativity as a singer and performer - the perfect evening!
Setlist
01. Alone (new song)
02. Pictures Of You
03. Kyoto Song
04. A Night Like This
05. Love Song
06. And Nothing Is Forever (new song)
07. Cold
08. Burn
09. At Night
10. A Strange Day
11. Push
12. Play for Today
13. Want
14. Shake Dog Shake
15. From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
16. End Song
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17. I Can Never Say Goodbye (new song)
18. Plain Song
19. Disintegration
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20. Happy Birthday To You (for Roger)
21. Lullaby
22. The Walk
23. Friday I’m in Love
24. Doing The Unstuck (Tour debut!)
25. Close To Me
26. In Between Days
27. Just Like Heaven
28. A Forest
29. Boys Don’t Cry
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 9
Light: 9
Total: 9.5 / 10
All pictures by Heshan Perera
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