How Long Is The Cure Concert?
This question cannot be answered precisely because each Cure concert is unique, and the duration of each Cure concert largely depends on the specific show being performed. The Strangest Show: A Review of the Performances by the Legendary Group
In the event of watching a live performance of the English rock band The Cure, one is in for a long performance, or what is commonly referred to as a marathon. The Cure, known for their extremely long concerts with no warm-up act and lasting over three hours in some cases,. Alright, let's focus on what happens on stage at their spectacular performances.
Founded in 1976 in Crawley, Sussex, the Cure's debut album was Three Imaginary Boys, released in 1979. They came to the stage in the post-punk and new wave movements of the late 1970s and 1980s, along with such bands as Joy Division and Depeche Mode. In the subsequent years, they developed an aggressive gothic rock style that incorporated guitar melodies and Smith's lyrics were as introspective as the latter.
Currently, the Cure still performs live and creates music with Smith and other members in support of its name. They have produced 13 albums in studio to date and some of their famous hits include Boys Don't Cry, Close To Me, and Friday I'm In Love Among such long years of performance, the Cure has managed to cultivate a choir of fanatical enthusiasts who will do anything to attend one of their lengthy shows.
Well, what kind of elements make up these epic shows? First of all, Cure has plenty of songs which can be used as candidates for singles, as it is a band with more than 40 years of experience. Still, they mix things up quite a lot, choosing the songs from each album on any specific show. Any fan can hardly assume that the two will occasionally bring back rather unknown but brilliant tracks. The band is democratic in the way they come up with the set for each night; people are free to speak their minds and get certain songs to be included. What this implies is that there are high odds that the mega-fans who attend several shows in a tour are going to hear different choices.
The Cure is not only versatile in the choice of songs; they do not only play one set and leave the stage; they often play up to four or five encores before they are done. Their encores are usually some of their most popular hit songs and favorites sung by their fans. By the time these hit songs come in the encores after over three hours of tiring through album tracks and record selections, they can be regarded as encouraging and satisfying for the audience. It will also be remembered that the band certainly is well aware of how to handle its pacing and the ebb and flow of emotions during a performance that is this long.
Another aspect of sets can also be dependent on whether the Cure headlines festivals or they are doing their own shows, which are not festivals. During festivals, they perform 16–25 songs on a stage, depending on the amount of time granted to them by the organizers. However, everything is bigger when Australians perform their own headlining performances. The average length of most of the concerts during the 40th-anniversary tour in 2018, according to the data collected on Setlist. fm, was 135 minutes. Moreover, during the tour for the album Disintegration in 2016, the band played 29 songs and 160 minutes per night, which included performances in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia's multiple legs. Now that's a marathon!
Why does the Cure record such extensive concerts a lot more than most of the bands? Robert Smith has directly commented on this in interviews in the past and has claimed that this is more about the image that the band wants to portray than anything necessarily sinister. Most importantly, the extended sets appear to have originated from the Cure's urge to ensure that fans are fully enshrouded by the world the band is offering them. These fluctuate from slow rock numbers, catchy pop-tinged tracks and melodic, acoustic tracks to a plethora of atmospheric, effects-laden sonic excursions. The aim is to walk the viewers through the complete range of the cure's generic transformations with in a single performance.
Moreover, Smith himself seems to be almost tireless on the stage, violently swaying and dancing to the beats for over 30 songs at a time. According to a 2016 interview, Smith responded to the question of how he could muster the energy for such extended performances by saying that he physically believes he could not do it if he did not love it. If I didn't get something out of doing these marathon shows, if I wasn't still getting a buzz from actually going on stage and playing, then I simply couldn't do it. Evidently, Smith's passion for live performances is still strong and assists in propping up these shows in the same manner that audience interest does.
When you take a seat at a Cure concert, what the band is offering is to envelope you in their sound world. Songs disappear into lengthy improvisations, catchy radio singles are followed by brooding, angsty album cuts and set closers mimic a Pavlovian response of resolution. So just forget about going to see a rock band perform some of their hits and thats that! As with any Robert Smith-fronted affair, especially on a solo headlining tour, be prepared for a three-hour musical thrill ride. Bygones enthusiasts certainly would not expect it otherwise.
