Sometimes I’m Dreaming

last night we ventured up through the I-5 traffic to the brand new Everett Events Center to see The Cure. the complex is an ice rink, home to Everett’s WHL team newly built just last year. at the entrance we were frisked (Brianna had to run back to the car because they wouldn’t let her in with the belt she had on). while we waited for her we observed the crowd pouring into the arena. a decidedly different crowd than what i would expect to see in Detroit. for some reason the trend this evening was towards the goth-trash look combined with lots of wiggly, jiggly bellies hanging out. it was a very odd scene indeed.

we opted not to stand in line for a wrist band on the floor and grabbed a nice spot one level up to the left of the stage. i must admit i wasn’t feeling the usual excitement i have for seeing The Cure and i think it has to do with the cancellation of the original festival date. Mark and i made a list of songs we actually didn’t want to hear to pass the time waiting for them to take the stage. Mark had been trolling the setlists for the other shows and had concluded that if they started with ‘Lost’ it meant bad news. and lo and behold, they started with ‘Lost’. i do have to admit, as much as i loathe most of the new songs (and ALL of the lyrics) they are improved live. immediately after they jumped right into ‘Plainsong’ and as much as i adore that song, the sound was horrible. you could literally hear the drums echoing off the back of the arena and to overcome the crap sound, the band just played louder.

there were typical ‘crowd’ favorites (at least this is what i’m told. it seems that none of the ‘crowd’ actually enjoys the huge non-radio catalogue the band has. but, i digress). ‘Just Like Heaven’, ‘Fascination Street’ and the like. we were sitting right in front of a group of people that screamed at the top of their lungs through the entire show for any song that had received radio airplay. any song that hadn’t found them to be outside smoking. do i sound bitter? the crowd just seemed really lame. it’s as if the majority had bought the Greatest Hits and that was it. all of the people around us sat frozen like statues, no movement, no bouncing of heads, no shaking of hips. nothing. it’s a weird Seattle phenomena.

i was starting to wonder whether this show was going to be, well, boring until near the end of the main set they played ‘Disintegration’ and ‘One Hundred Years’ (all of the dancy, spinny people on the floor stopped dancing). and then, they did a whopping FIVE encores. and can you guess what the first one was? ‘The Drowning Man’, ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ and ‘Faith’. i thought Mark was going to pass out from happiness! each of the encores sounded fantastic. i have to say it was the new stuff that didn’t sound great (yes, i know i said it sounded better live … but it still wasn’t all that great). they even played a couple of songs from Bloodflowers after Robert proclaimed that they hadn’t played them ‘in four years’ and that afterwards it felt like ‘time travel’. each song ended with the typical Smith ‘Q’ (translated=Thank You).

i suppose this sounds a little jaded. i should say that i see The Cure every chance i get for so many reasons (other than being one of the sacred ones). i have so many memories tied to this music because it’s been what i’ve listened to through so many different periods of my life. when Disintegration was released, i bought it the day it came out (on tape, no less) and then drove around to listen to the entire thing (that’s a whole lot of driving when you’re downriver). i’ve fallen asleep to that album for 15 years now. wait, that can’t be right. oh, that makes me feel a little sick. and each time i see them, i never ceased to be amazed that 5 people can mean so much to so many different people. i could never understand how they got pinned with the ‘goth’ or ‘depressing’ label, or why people think their music is depressing. the lyrics are poetic, lovely and sometimes silly (even bad at times … hey, no one’s perfect) and the music is complex. Simon is such a great bass player (i just had to throw that in). so what is so depressing about that?

i’m rambling, i know. i just love The Cure. like so many other things (aversion to baked fruit), i can’t help it. i will see them again, and again, and again.

p.s. Travis Hay at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, anytime you want someone to come and write a real review for you, you let me know.