Dressed up to the eyes It’s a wonderful surprise To see your shoes and your spirits rise Throwing out your frown And just smiling at the sound
Many, many middle-aged musicians turn shit, not limited to Morrissey. The two-hour-plus “The Cure–Anniversary 1978-2018: Live in Hyde Park London” demonstrates every nice thing that’s been said about the gone-to-gray-with-the-same-makeup Robert Smith and the Cure, plus the sound is mixed to be loud, louder. If you know the songs, love the songs, even like the songs, it’s sweetly euphoric, the only bittersweet element, time, time itself, yet it is also the strength: these guys know how to play these songs, and Tim Pope’s widescreen filming of the fortieth-anniversary show captures the playfully neon stage settings in unfussy style. Plus the sound? Yeah, that’s what pointed me toward the show: IT SOUNDS GREAT. Or as Smith calls it, lightly winded, two hours on, “a fucking excellent experience.”
“Forty years ago this weekend,” Smith says near the end, abashedly impressed by his own words, “was the first time we played as the Cure in the Rocket in Crawley [West Sussex], and if you asked me then, any of who had been alive, some of you would have been, what do you think you’ll be doing in forty years, I think I would have been wowed by the answer.”
If a band’s gonna go through four decades of shamanistic repetition, these are dandy, candy incantations:
I tried to laugh about it Cover it all up with lies I tried to laugh about it Hiding the tears in my eyes ‘Cause boys don’t cry
136m. Widescreen. In 4K digital; the stellar 5.1 audio mix is by Robert Smith and Paul Corkett. (Ray Pride)
“The Cure–Anniversary 1978-2018” plays July 11-12 at the Music Box and July 11 at River East, Arclight Chicago and City North.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
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