Live report November 23rd, Sportpaleis, Antwerp BE

justlikeheaven: I was denied entrance to the venue. But thanks to you, crossing all of your  fingers, I managed to get in anyway. Review follows later today. I need more coffee first.

How did you manage? Do you have a trick I can learn? :-)

EDIT: Should've used ninja and Danielle

The thing is he bought a second hand ticket at Ticketswap. So no 100% guarantee is going to work. He bought it under my advice.   

My plan didn’t work! I still look the same as I did yesterday, but mind you I didn’t really sleep much. For this plan to work, I think It requires a minimum of 8 solid hours of sleep.  Better luck next time I hope! 

 

No Cure show today. So if you're looking for an antidote, here is Part 2...

The Twilight Sad

After having fallen in love with this song of TTS some weeks ago (starting at 7:51 in this clip) my expectations for a live show were rather high. But I got what I had hoped for, and to me TTS was superb, both musically and performance wise. Surely I always try to separate behavior or (Ian Curtis like) attitudes from music, but yesterday both made my day and even seemed like a good match to me. Their final song yesterday was one of my favorites, so I was a happy man with a face that smiled even before The Cure started.

The Cure

Main Set

Thunder setting in. The start of the evening somehow had eaten some of my enthisiasm, but slowly my mood had changed in a positive way due to TTS. And finally I would be able to witness what many of you have been describing here on the forum during this tour.

--Alone
What an opener! Shivers down my spine from the first moment, but I decided to hold my tears for a later moment. Wow, I love this song, like I loved Open as an opener back in those days.

--Pictures Of You
This is my first Cure show (out of 10) where I smelled pizzas, with and without pineapple. Even the smell of thuna and salami came through one moment. May I thank you all for that?

--A Night Like This
After all our evenings together, I tried not to predict what the next song would be, but nevertheless, a great version of A night like this was played.

--Lovesong followed by --And Nothing Is Forever is a well chosen emotional combo. Those tears were mine, and not of chocolate this time. And as I'm writing, I re-live that very specific new song again. It took me by surprise. Just wonderful.

--Burn
When Robert grabbed his flute (am I allowed to write this sentence here?) I heard 2 teenage girls next to me scream "WTF" and "How cute!" before they disappeared in their InstantSpam world of likes and even more likes. If only tonight they could sleep, I thought.

--The Hanging Garden
It cannot be described how grateful I am for having had this song in the setlist. Instantly, I was the younger version of myself again. And I already look so young. Jason, you are an awesome drummer!

--The Last Day Of Summer
Robert explained how he "remembered the exact moment he wrote this very song and it all came back like it was yesterday" (or something similar, although it could also have been a recipe for a cake he was proclaiming). The perfect song before AFT it felt.

--A Fragile Thing
Every time Robert sings/says "...is a lie" is just wow. And the projections and light show are beyond beautiful. This song has grown on me day after day. Yesterday, it became twice my size.

--Cold
I know many of you will not believe me... but I swear I heard a snippet of Cockatoes at the start of Cold. Really. Listen here (at second 24-25). My prayers have been heard! Thanks so much Robert (and all of you who helped). Anyway, Cold, another of my favorites. Live in Antwerp.

--At Night
Simon's bass is cutting the venue hall in pieces. Awesome how he is carying this song. And his gestures with his bass, shooting the audience in the face (well, figuratively I mean)! Could be that he aimed at that very specific scanning guy that softly killed me with his handheld during check-in).

--Charlotte Sometimes
Yes, yes yes, my dearest Charlotte saying hello to me in person. "They seemed so far away, but Charlotte did not cry." Well, I did, but nobody noticed.

--Push
Moist eyes again, not because of seagulls or freaking tickets, but because of the 2 teenage girls next to me getting crazy because "their song" was played. Can you imagine that! At the age of 15 or 16 maybe! I could have been their father, Robert their grandpa.
Of all bands, it is The Cure filling the generation gap with their timeless songs. Seeing so much people from very young to very old, some for their first The Cure show, others for yet another show, and others (Oh. My. God.) watching the World Cup live on their SMART (yeah, right) devices in the midst of a Cure concert is awesome.

--Play For Today
Robert, Roger and Simon couldn't stop laughing when the audience choir set in, like "what the fudge are they doing with our song, it became a football anthem". But then again, the ambience in the hall cannot be described in earthly words, hence: bleep blip bloop bam!

--Shake Dog Shake
Yesterdays's performance of SDS reminded me of the great drumming of Jason during this song. I simply loved it so much! The 6 giants on the screen looked down on me, and turned over 19,000 people humble instantly. Vocally a very strong and impressive performance.

--From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea

I thought that there were some guitar issues during the start of the song, but YT proved me wrong, so it's probably related to the venue's acoustic. The performance of this song was fabulous, and Reeves' solo towards the end really hit me. It never was a favorite, but yesterday it became one. And as a grown-up rebel, I was the only one with my hands down to the floor when Robert advised everyone to "put your hands in the sky". Ha!

--Endsong
What can I say? The way Reeves' guitar started weeping before the song started is so fudging great. Jason materialized as the drummer I pictured so many time during our (silent) bean evenings. Possibly, I hit some people on the back when joining him, sorry for that.
Also sorry to the people behin me taking pictures of the great visuals during Endsong, there might be some unwanted reflection from the back of my Cure-hairstyle-less head. Let that be the payback moment for all the times my eyes had to search a way through all smart devices to spot the singer of my favorite band. Luckily, I didn't cut both of my ears as some planned to do here in the forum.

I want to repeat that this song is just epic. It unleashed so many emotions at the same time, and they do come back as I'm writing this review. "It's all gone, I don't belong here anymore" Robert lamented, while instantly the 2 teenage girls formed hearts with their hand to comfort the old singer: "You do belong here, big teddy bear."

The solos of Reeves during this song are haunting beautiful, maybe the best I heard so far, they ruined me completely (in a good way) and left me where it all started: Alone (in a crowd). With no room left for anything else but The Cure.

Encore 1

--I Can Never Say Goodbye
A bit strange how Robert introduces this song in quite a funny way, given the subject matter. "It's about my brother dying. How sad that is." British/black humor or stand-up comedy. I like both. I felt sad for his loss, but was unable to do something more than just witnessing his sorrow. As if that wasn't hard enough, Reeves added some more grief by killing his guitar live on stage. November never felt so dark.

--Faith
I had my fair share of cockatoes already, so I welcomed Faith with open arms. I heard Faith in Lille back in 2000, but forgot how good the song is live. A masterpiece, with the best visuals ever. Rome, June 4th, 1989. "I need to sing a song called Faith".

--A Forest
Oh my! Great version, with a marvellous collaboration in the end between Robert and Simon, followed by Simon sawing trees like a mad man (at 7:15), finally throwing his guitar like a block of wood against the ground speaker when walking off stage.

Robert, taking care of musical gear like good musicicians do, took the bass from the ground and put in in the respective standard. Eden finally tuned it back into shape, nodding towards the audience that everything was ok with the instrument now.

Encore 2

Robert and Simon came on stage hugging each other like old friends, after which Robert prepared the audience for "a fudging great Wednesday feeling" (or something similar of course).

--Lullaby
It is clear: when Spiderman enters the room, the room is on fire. It doesn't always have to be the roof. There must've been something in the water, cause even the teenage girls were not afraid of the giant beast threatening the audience. Honestly, I was more afraid of the swinging arms of the guy in front of me, I almost lost an eye.

--The Walk
When The Walk set in, it was so overwhelming, I had never realized before what a great dancer I actually am. Animated gifs flashed through my head, I was catapulted to a time in history in a pub in Brussels, and ordered another meter of beer. In my thoughts of course, since I don't drink anymore.

--Let's Go To Bed
What a surprise to have this one served on the Cure plate. A tiny piece of cockatoo compensated by a kilo or so cats seemed like a good deal to me, two days before Black Friday.

--Friday I'm In Love
With a Wednesday intro this time, people went nuts all around me. Completely N.U.T.S.
I put the Happy New Year gif up in the air and observed the utter happiness all around me, standing still like a frozen watch tower in the midst of a blood read sea. OK, that was
exagerated, but you get the feeling, and take note that I'm not a professional reporter.

I looked around to find steve , couldn't find him, and prepared myself for Doing the unstuck. How stupid of me! steve was present online of course.

--Close To Me
Dancing Robert. Like we have seen so many times before. But now live on stage in Antwerp.

--In Between Days
Not my favorite one I must say, but life has its ups and downs, so I obliged myself to remain focused and acknowledge the fact that a couple of school boys wrote so many world famous hits after all.
Roger spotted the 2 teenage girl begging for "DRUM STICKS" written in capitals on their iPhones, waving at the stage, but couldn't read it from that distance.
Little did they now that there were still two more song left, and Jason needed the sticks to end the show properly.

--Just Like Heaven
How more heavenly can it be, when you find yourself more than 30 years after your first Cure concert, in front of a stage with the same band again? I pinched my arm, and thought "Daylight licked me into shape, I must have been asleep for days" but confirmed to myself that it was not a dream. It was just like heaven.

--Boys Don't Cry
Boys don't cry turned out to be one of the biggest lies in history, as we have seen and witnessed both on-stage and off-stage. But is was the lyrics of that one song that were distributed on chain paper in the class room that pointed me into the direction of The Cure, who have been stalking me for so many decades now. If only Robert and Richard knew what they started back in the seventies.

What an applause and appreciation from te audience after the show ended! The. Loudest. Sound. Goosebumps! An no goose in sight.



Since I enjoyed the reviews from all of you in this forum for some weeks now, it was a pleasure to gives you my insights of (how I enjoyed) the show in Antwerp. Please don't convert my words into lower quality formats or sell them outside of this forum. Rather add them to the pile, and book yourself a ticket for one of the remaining shows, now that you still can. But double check the ticket validity. Just some minor advice.

PS: Just for the record: Yes, Robert was wearing a black bandana (the 'd' in the word is of major importance here, if in doubt, replace it with 'ribon').

PS2: Remember what I wrote earlier in the Ticket Warning thread? Indeed, greyish (medium) it is!

No need to feel sorry gongoro73 - it was entirely my responsibility to put my trust in TS. And after all, I'm glad I did and things turned out fine!