“There’s an atmosphere and everyone’s clicking,” The Cure frontman Robert Smith told NME in an exclusive interview last week after their glorious finale set at Glastonbury 2019. “For the first time ever, I’m able to talk to the others on stage. Everyone gets on really well, and it’s such a joy to be playing.”
See our beautiful photos from The Cure at Mad Cool 2019 below
You can tell. Tonight at Mad Cool 2019 as we witness Smith giddily getting carried away to the Nth degree as he squawks through the chorus of ‘Never Enough’ and see guitarist Reeves Gabrels embracing as ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ winds down, the fraternity between these four friends and their love of still being on stage is infectious.
For their hardcore Madrid fans, their setlist leans a little more on their esoteric and gothic side than they did at Glasto. While opening with the swooning grace of ‘Plainsong’ and aching pop-noir gem ‘Pictures Of You’, their cavalcade of hits draws on the darker elements with ‘Lovesong’, ‘Fascination Street’ and ‘A Forest’ – but also punctuated with fan treats like ‘Japanese Whispers’ album track ‘Just One Kiss’, ‘Last Dance’ from ‘Disintegration’ and the searing ‘Burn’ from The Crow soundtrack. It pays off. The Mad Cool crowd raves through every minute of it, with their hunger for The Cure more than matched by the band’s compulsion to deliver.
“We’ll play a few well-known songs for you now,” says Smith, typically understated, as they return for the encore – before blooming into the full technicolour version of The Cure as they dance through the likes of ‘Lullaby’, ‘The Caterpillar’, ‘The Walk’, ‘Friday I’m In Love’ and ‘Close To Me’. It’s relentlessly satisfying. For a band at this stage of their career, it’s mad to think they could still be peaking.
“It’s probably not the first time or the last that I’m going to burst into tears at the end of a show this summer,” Smith told us of his emotional display at the end of Glastonbury. You can tell that tonight means just as much to them. See them this summer at all costs.
Check out our photos of The Cure’s magnificent Mad Cool show below.
The Cure’s setlist was:
Plainsong
Pictures of You
High
Just One Kiss
Lovesong
Last Dance
Burn
Fascination Street
Never Enough
Push
In Between Days
Just Like Heaven
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
A Night Like This
Play for Today
A Forest
Primary
Shake Dog Shake
39
Disintegration
Encore:
Lullaby
The Caterpillar
The Walk
Friday I’m in Love
Close to Me
Why Can’t I Be You?
Boys Don’t Cry
“Sometimes you make me feel like I’m living at the edge of the world…”
The Cure opened their Mad Cool 2019 set with a majestic outing of ‘Plainsong’
Sweet dance moves
Rob’s still got it.
“I will always love you”
You can really feel how much everything still matters when The Cure step on stage.
This is what a legend looks like
There’s only one Robert Smith
What an encore
‘Lullaby’, into ‘The Caterpillar’ into ‘The Walk’ into ‘Friday I’m in Love’, then ‘Close to Me’, ‘Why Can’t I Be You?’ and ‘Boys Don’t Cry’. What more do you want?
Just like heaven…
What a perfect way to end Mad Cool 2019. See you next year
Catch ’em while you can
The Cure’s European summer festival tour continues with appearances at Øya, Way Out West, Flow, Rock En Seine and Glasgow Summer Sessions
