The last time The Cure played Cleveland was June 18, 2008 at the CSU Wolstein Center.
On June 11, 15 years later, the band returned with a sold-out show at Blossom in front of some 30,000 fans.
For decades, lead singer Robert Smith has vehemently denied that The Cure is a goth band, but that didn’t stop a crowd of fans dressed head to toe in black. Smith and company brought with them the best of the best of The Cure’s catalog for a 30-song set that lasted two hours and thirty seven minutes. The heavy rains and some lightning delayed the show, but the set that sounded as crisp as any of the 12 albums they pulled from, with Smith’s vocals just as smooth and seamless as they were 40 years ago.
The Cure opened with the new song “Alone,” off their highly anticipated new album Songs of a Lost World. A bold move, but fans reacted cheerfully despite likely not knowing any of the words. The song starts out ironically with the lyric ,“This is the end of every song we sing,”.
The 30-song set included the big crowd-pleasers everyone remembers, such as “Pictures of You,” “Lovesong,” “And Nothing Is Forever,” “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep,” “Burn”, Kyoto Song,” “A Night Like This,” “Push,” “ At Night,” Play For Today,” “A Forest,” and “Shake Dog Shade.” Smith even did a little dancing during that one.
The first encore included “ I Can Never Say Goodbye,” “It Can Never Be the Same,” “Want”, “Plainsong,” and crowd favorite “Disintegration.” It was a great mellow set for Smith to collect himself and set up for the second encore.
Encore number two was more upbeat and gave the fans a change to dance. “ Lullaby,” “Six Different Ways,” “The Walk,” “Close to Me,” and more crowd favorites in “Why Can’t I Be You,” “In Between Days,” “Just Like Heaven,” and “Boys Don’t Cry.”
