1993-06-19---New-Musical-Express-(GB)-p35+36

XCEEDINGLY GOOD, MATES!
GREAT
XPECTATIONS
LONDON FINSBURY
PARK
In the midst of all this,
27,000 people are invited to
the pre-emptive inauguration
of Britain’s first indie radio
station, XFM, as it continues
its campaign for a legal
licence; to spend nine hours
drinking, dancing and
celebrating the health of a
subculture that, following the
massive success of Nirvana,
Suede, Therapy? et al, has
the potential to flood into the
mainstream.
So, we’re presented with
what appears to be the
gathering of the indie
aristocracy: ten groups
bashing out their alternative
hearts in a field of frenetic
dreams. Even their absentee
comrades are here in spirit -
witness the vast array of band
T-shirts scattered throughout
the crowd: from Teenage
Fanclub to Ride and onto
Chumbawamba, thousands of
chests prove the depth of
support for XFM’s idealistic
ambitions.
No such glitches for THE
CURE, of course: the good
news is that their sound is
perfect and the
aforementioned visual
screens afford 99 per cent of
the chirpy ones’ fanbase the
opportunity to see a live
close-up of Robert Smith’s
fizzog for the first time since
the band played at the ‘tiny’
T&C2 in London a couple of
years ago. Presumably, this
means that the devoted will
now be able to perfect all the
latest mascara smears and
lipstick blotches - a moot
point considering the number
of Bob-a-likes darkening the
beer tents.
That’s The Cure down to a
‘T’: even the most diligent of
observers will be hardpressed
to find anyone
wandering around the site
trying to look like Mark Keds,
Bob Mould or Paul Linehan. A
decade and a half in the
music business has turned
Bob into the Queen Mother of
subterranean weird-rock; the
kind of geezer who’s
obviously a bloody good
bloke, actually, and is fully
capable of carrying out his
public duties without batting
a heavily made-up eyelid. Or
choking on the odd fishbone.
So The Cure machine once
again oozes, nay glides into
life, now lacking keyboardist
Porl (and then there were
four...) but still wholly
proficient in the art of
knocking out some decent
tunes and aligning them to
ludicrously sumptuous
atmospherics. ‘Just Like
Heaven’ is the epitome of
their happy-sad, butchered
puppydog charm; ‘Shake Dog
Shake’ is gracefully nasty;
and the driving wails of
‘Three Imaginary Boys’ harks
back to a time when they
couldn’t fill their back garden,
let alone Finsbury Park.
It’s all deeply pleasant -
but there’s no sense of
danger, of The Cure doing
anything to disorientate us.
Sure, the mewling rattle-punk
of ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ sounds
refreshingly off-kilter - but
it’s a pleasantly shocking bit
of nostalgia rather than a
bold step forward.
As with much of today,
we’re left with the feeling
that they’ve effortlessly
entertained us, but singularly
failed when it comes to
excitement. We’re not about
to rip up the turf and storm
the backstage area: we just
want to go home and put the
kettle on. And that’s hardly
the point of all this, is it?
C aptain ‘M a x F a c to r' Bob displays th a t fam ous b u tc h e red puppydog charm
photo by photo by publicotion issue (YYYY-MM-DD) country
Roger Sargent Simon Williams & John Harris New Musical Express 1993-06-19 UK