. having missed the dirty three at the opera house last night (and still kicking myself!) i decided to take up a friend’s very kind offer to accompany him to the cure last night. grouse.
they’re doing the disintegration album. nice and bleak. moody. goth! just the ticket for a cold monday night by the harbor. release the bats and all that. except… that silly annual light show is on at the moment, so the mood down there tonight was decidely royal easter show on acid.
the cure pulled a fairly neat trick – they supported themselves. so we got about 20 minutes of them cranking through a few of their less impressive b-sides (and believe me, there’s gold in them thar ’80s 12″ flipsides) before retiring from the stage for a ten minute recharge on the VO5 and maybelline. and ladies and gentlemen… what a strange gig.
here was i, all congested and wheezy and pretending i’d been on a laudanum bender all arvo to quell the tb, lace hankie in my muff. musket tucked down the front of my plus fours. but where the fuck did this audience come from?!
pictures of you found the crowd getting into the spirit of it with a little singalong with mad bob. fair enough. two songs later lovesong starts, and the decidedly attractive looking woman along the row in front of me decides to serenade her romeo, who for all intents and purposes looked like he would rather be at one of those barnesy/farnesy/kimcarnesy rsl tours.
juliette’s rocking into the full on sex vampire “oyfucknloveyoubaaaabe” schtick, but he looks terrified. a few tunes after that, lullaby. now this is aguably one of the sexiest songs ever. i mean “i feel like i’m being eaten by a thousand million shivering furry holes”. come onnnn. it’s up there with prince’s let’s pretend we’re married (extended doity version). but not here. nup. 1,000 full throated footballers screaming “SPOYDAMAIRN IS ‘AVIN ME FOR DINNAH TONOYT.”
they should have sung ‘tea’ insted of ‘dinner’. and then! and then the lever was switched to PLAIN FUCKING WEIRD during the same deep water as you. the bassist was this junkie-thin bloke with gene simmons kabuki hair and lycra leggings (commando, too). he constantly prowled the stage as if he was either (a) trying out for a gig as an afl rover or (b) looking for a heavy metal band somewhere beneath the drum riser. but he wasn’t the weird.
just below his station in the front row, an elderly couple (let’s call them scott and pauline) whipped out a couple of australian flags and proudly held them aloft at the band for about 15 seconds. and people are still scratching their heads at the election result. hell, these are good times – for kooks. the encore was a few oddities, including three imaginary boys and some silly pirate shanty.
i had a ball. don’t miss them.
– mister fussy.