MP3 ach!! Get some quality headphones, a DAC/headphone amp and listen to FLAC files, especially vinyl ripped to FLAC - you'll be in heaven. I'm not much of a bootleg collector, I do have some - well, quite a lot I suppose, but, I mostly collect the official stuff. Then give it away!
Hi GOD: I'm far from home with a 750gb laptop, and I listen to the shows with a pair of Stormtrooper headphones that I bought for $40 at Star Wars Celebration V. I do have about 12 FLAC shows with me, but that's just because I've downloaded them courtesy of you guys this year, so thanks. :-)
I am nearly at the end of the 1980 tour, now listening to 1980-10-17 jaap edenhal – amsterdam (netherlands). The set opens humorously with Robert complaining they weren't given time for a proper sound check, so he says the first number is "I hate rock n roll". I liked it! A nice instrumental bit, sounds alright. This is near the end of the year, so we're getting some really nice tracks like The Holy Hour that will be released on Faith six months later. That's a long wait for those hearing these tracks on this October show!
You think the UK fans had to wait, according to Wiki, US fans had to wait until the chart success of Let's Go to Bed for these albums to start being reissued in 1986.
Play for Today sounds so polished and fast, although the lyrics seem off. Can't tell if this is an early form, or if Robert's just having fun with the lyrics based on the chemical cocktail he's on at this time. Primary so needs an update, every performance of this early version in 1980 has him going on about "Yellow yellow yellow". Thank goodness this got a kickstarted update for the album release and subsequent tours. You can hear the audience talking through the proto Primary, their cue to get beers, never a good sign. Although The Cure never takes requests, it's clear that the audience reaction helped in the redesign of this song into its current form.
I love hearing the girls scream when Robert introduces "This is called Three Imaginary". The crowd had the entire first album memorized, probably. Don't play the new stuff! (Always love to hear Fire in Cairo, maybe cause I think of it as a b-side to Killing an Arab).
I never really liked Jumping Someone Else's Train except as a fast guitar exercise. But I love it here as it's trimmed to 1:45 to make way for Another Journey by Train. Still waiting for the chance to hear these back to back in a live show! (But it's okay to have Grinding Halt as the railroad track sound segue in recent years). Either the recording is fast or this Another Journey is drug-fueled mania, wow! This one's going off the tracks! (okay, bad pun)
Band must be tired, Grinding Halt is just over two minutes. Oh well, sounds great as usual.
Interesting reaction to A Forest being announced, real crowd enthusiasm here for something that has caught on. I wonder how they saw the music video without MTV. Geez, the audience is clapping along in excitement at the opening guitar chords. Yes!!
Lastly for 1980, listening to Lancaster_15-11-1980. Great fun to hear All Cats are Grey at this early stage. Appropriate that it's from the Faith album, as I feel an almost spiritual calm come over me whenever I hear this song. It's a bit raw and fast in 1980, but it sure improves next year!
Primary sounds better, too. Not quite ready, but it's getting there. Great to hear works in progress tested out on audiences. I am curious if this would have had an effect on Disintegration and the later albums, which were rarely previewed ahead of time. In the case of Bloodflowers, I feel the subsequent tour fixed album tracks I considered bland and uninspired. Perhaps if Robert had done for that album the "beta-testing" that went into Faith, who knows? Could have improved everything in the last 20 years. (Consider how The Hungry Ghost has come along as Robert has honed it in the years since it was on 4:13 Nightmare, er, Dream.)
I didn't have any bootlegs until I joined CureConnections so I really don't have any expertise in good v bad. However I do enjoy 1979 a lot, primarily because of the energy involved and the fact they had so much talent at a ridiculous age! Although I like Faith and Pornography as albums, I think I'm more of a fan when THOTD is brought into the set list, so I'm looking forward to exploring around '85 or so. Then after that, I haven't really listened to much other than a few '92 and then obviously the last couple of years.
Of course the other thing I forgot to mention is TIME! It's not to hard to chuck on a '79 bootleg and finish it before breakfast. Anything after 2000 and you need a weeks holiday!
Of course the other thing I forgot to mention is TIME! It's not to hard to chuck on a '79 bootleg and finish it before breakfast. Anything after 2000 and you need a weeks holiday!
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This. You might get through the first few years of your boots rather quickly, but beyond 2000 or so, their shows are insanely long! Robert might be getting older, but the dude must be in good shape to do what he does live. How does his voice hold out?
Yes, I was struck by how long The Cure plays by going to shows by two other acts in 2013. They both played for an hour and assumed you spent all that money to hear two hours worth of opening acts. Bullcrap! I get ticked off at that, but The Cure has always delivered a complete experience. And all without dancers, stage production, smoke machines, or fireworks!
I am so excited to be starting on 1981, now listening to "1981-05-06 derby". Very very fuzzy sound quality, but you can follow all the tracks. The audience sounds downright respectful and attentive.
I'm trying to picture the Derby crowd in the UK at this time. Rowdy, smashing bottles, shoving people into fights. How did The Cure manage crowds of hooligans at these small venues? Maybe they had good bouncers.
The show sounds pretty good, although Faith sounds real rough in the opening. That intro took awhile to sound finished.
Now listening to 1981-11-30 - Coventry - Apollo Theatre (UK). This tour starts around the release of the Faith album in April, but I will skip around as the dates are labelled differently. A curse for any Cure fan, at least we have enough shows to worry about consistent date labels!
1981 has some of the finest shows ever recorded by The Cure. Later in the year, as in this show, they have Splintered in her Head on every show, which is real nice. Some tracks haven't weathered the years as well. The Funeral Party and The Drowning Man both put me to sleep, they sound tedious and overwrought. Thank goodness Primary is here to lift things up!
Real cool that live fans are getting The Figurehead six months before the release of Pornography here. It's the rough version heard on the Porn Deluxe edition (on sale now!), where Robert's vocals wander outside of the beat. But it's still great to hear.
I'm noticing a trend here with the early stuff, where they tour the hell out of tracks many many months before laying down the final tracks. Would have helped everything The Cure has released since Disintegration (yes, I think Wish was half-baked, I said it). Here, Figurehead has elements of greatness, but needs six more months of polish before being recorded.
We're moving into the pop era of The Cure with Charlotte Sometimes. Audience recognition shows the single must have just been released. Robert swore they'd never be a chart-happy pop band, but maybe that was the drugs talking, so who knows. Fortunately for us, this means they didn't evaporate and disappear like so many other new wave bands. I'm still amazed no one from The Cure died from drugs, although most band members hit rock bottom at one time or another.
I'm struck by the contrast here. They're touring off a new album that features The Funeral Party as their chosen sound. Yet they release Charlotte Sometimes as a single between albums to say no, this is the more polished direction we're going to take. I think there's a world of difference between the two tracks. I wonder what their audiences were making of these competing sounds at the time.
Other Voices has that odd sort of waltz beat the rest of the album has, but it's so mysterious and other-worldly. Gives the bass player something to do, something that we've missed on recent efforts. This song has sort of the same theme as M and Jumping Someone Else's Train, but taking us in weird directions. I mentioned The Cure as part of the British new wave, but listen to Other Voices. Nobody ever sounded like this, before or since. Not pop, but what? Impossible to categorize, as the band intended.
The Hanging Garden is really interesting at this early stage. Sounds somewhat like the demo on the Porn Deluxe edition, but different. Amazing to hear all the variations this went through to get it right. Like half the band is still playing Other Voices.
By this stage late in the year, Play for Today is perfection. They rip through it like it's easy, even though it's a fast and complicated song.
Nice close to A Forest, as it is a creepy segue into Forever.
Fans are yelling for their favorite encore when One Hundred Years breaks out, again, six months before the album it's on is released. They haven't figured out the lead guitar on this one yet. Great to hear so many experimental works in progress at once. At least the drum beat is familiar. I kind of like this version, it's very surreal and sweeping.
This recording closes with Faith. It's got the duelling guitar lines at the open which make this song so pretty. I think of original fans at this show, clutching their debut album vinyls, hoping for a signature. The Cure wasn't simply different by this stage, their music had grown infinitely deeper than what anyone could have expected.
And we're still four years away from when America first hears Let's Go to Bed, which is the first time I had heard the band. The Cure wasn't simply another world, it was already an entire new universe in 1981. And it was just going to keep getting better.
Last Edit: Jul 24, 2014 2:32:52 GMT 1 by AForestFan
What a beautiful journey through 1981. I skipped over my favorite show of all time, 05.07.1981 Werchter - Festival Park Werchter (Belgium), simply because I seemingly have every note memorized as I've been playing it since obtaining a single-disc bootleg in 1999.
I've listened in the past week to 25.04.1981 Taunton - Odeon (England) and just a few hours ago, 26.11.1981 Edinburgh - Odeon Theatre (Scotland). What power there is in the fully-realized Primary. No longer a demo version, we're ripping along through this one. "I thought of a song and quickly changed the tune", truer words never spoken. Thank goodness this went into version 2.0, although Cold Colours could have been a b-side. (This is the version from the Concert Live 1984 LP)
Currently listening to the magical 27.07.1981 Los Angeles - Whisky A Go-Go (USACA). Robert sounds about 12 years old from the recording, but everything is just perfect here. Fans there got a triple finale of Splintered in Her Head, A Forest, and Faith. Not a bad way to spend an evening! Metz 1981 version of Splintered shown here:
Post by nausearockpig on Sept 8, 2014 3:47:49 GMT 1
I too am making an effort to listen to all my bootlegs, but there are so damn many of them that it's going to take me years to get through them all - not that I'm complaining mind you, it's just numbing... I keep a spreadsheet of all my shows and rate the quality of each show for reference later, in case I want to go back and revisit them. I would like to have a "top concerts for each tour" list but again, there's just so many...
At last count I have 1200+ shows by The Cure, 800+ audio and 200+ video by Tool, 300+ Eels, 400+ Jane's Addiction, 300+ Nirvana, 400+ Faith No More & then a couple of hundred more assorted bands....
not that i'm complaining.... :-)
If you have a lead on Brisbane 21 August 1992 - CT version, for the love of Bob, let me know. Please!
I simply realized that I had accumulated these shows and was not planning to listen to them. That's sick! So here we go. It's been a fun endeavour.
I am down to my last three 1981 shows, currently listening to TheCure_1981-12-01 - Brighton - Dome (UK). I did not know I was listening to a trio until watching the above footage from the Werchter festival. I know, 'Three Imaginary Boys', didn't know that was literal!
Be interesting if Robert tried another tour as just a trio.
I had the same reflection some years ago: having all these shows and no listening to any.
So I started to listen almost the whole Pornography tour, everyday one show for about 1 month. That's a strange kind of experience there ... You really get in the mood.
Then I have to say my favorite show is the Paris 1982 - I've listen so many times to the tape I got around 1985, then to the digital versions ... I almost know every notes by heart. That version of Splintered in her head ... And the start of At night ... Makes me shiver only thinking to it ...