The treatment

Leicester De Montford Hall

May 11, 1981

Live exam

It’s strange that something that once looked so much like the future is now part of the historical past. 40 years ago, as post punk began to merge, The Cure was a major driver of acceleration into the future. The band were taking on a darker, deeper sound than anyone in the post Joy Division world with their new album Faith, released four weeks earlier.

The second part of the band’s doom album trilogy Faith was immersive and brilliant work that confused the music press but saw the band create a new soundscape and as The Cure entered Leicester Montford Hall for the tour accompanying backing this album, it positioned them on the front line of the new darkness.

We had hitchhiked from Stafford Poly where I hit my heels for a year before being kicked out and went to spend one of those eternal crazy youthful weekends with Martin Kelly, the former Membranes keyboardist. , who was studying for a degree at Leicester Poly.

Perfectly timed for the Cure concert which was a week after my 20th birthday, we got there early and waited for another sonic adventure with one of the best bands around and the one who was creating panels for a post trip. punk with their stark new vibe minimalism.

Things had changed rapidly since punk had deeply impacted our lives. In our own way, we were part of this process as well, stepping out of the post-punk wreckage and trying to get in tune with the future. The Cure were leading adventurers in that post-punk spinoff that had taken a darker turn since the impact of Joy Division and that iconic Manchester bands mesmerizing Martin Hannet produced landscapes that had already had a profound impact on contemporary groups.

The death of Ian Curtis had accentuated this and while during the tragic singer’s lifetime the band had been a small but fierce cult performing in front of an audience of just a few hundred impressed spectators, they were now finally embraced in their absence. Many traveling companions had been deeply touched by their sensual sensibilities and dark visions and The Cure where a part of this world was creating their own visionary masterpieces from the new moods that saw them, at the time, considered as the group most likely to go darker and darker. than the Manchester group.

The 17 Seconds album and tour evolved into a darker, more linear sound that was not only affected by the JDs but also by their association with the Siouxsie And The Banshees whose powerful influence and music. revolutionary with their first two albums seem to have been carefully removed from the general narrative. The Cure had been the backing group for the fateful Banshees tour in September 1979 when revolutionary drummer Kenny Norris and guitarist John Mckay resigned after the first date in Aberdeen and Smith was recruited to play guitar for the iconic group whose own mystical web of austere and dark psychedelia had permeated their own vision and their own music and even their style of dress.

The Cure moved quickly and embraced these revolutionary new styles, making them their own, musically and image wise and feeling not only part of this new world, but a key game changer as they took to the stage in Leicester there. all those decades ago. .

The three imaginary boys had been restless and creative. Initially an eccentric rock art group from Neo Buzzcocks that had entered our lives c / o the usual John Peel session, they had now morphed into a proto dark matter outfit. Before the word Goth was imposed on anyone who dared to explore melancholy, they were a key part of the post-punk alternative scene. The first album had been great – a stripped down affair where each instrument seemed to be in an unexpected place, of course Smith hates the sound of the album now, but for the listener it was an intriguing and very modern journey. It was a pop. A new kind of pop. Oddly enough, it was more like those new terrains that bands like XTC or Wire were playing with – post-punk pop perfectionists who were breaking down bass guitar and drums and reassembling them in a different order and with added minimalism.

Coming out of punk it felt like the music was really moving and if in the future it took these bands on very different paths, in 1981 they seemed to be playing with the same still unnamed space. It didn’t really sound like post punk at the time. Punk didn’t feel like it was over and its ripples and repercussions were still being felt as new bands emerging from the wreckage searched for their own narratives and dared to play mainstream before it all fell into the background. the underground and the gloomy resistance of the next wave of bands that made great music but whose impact was less than zero.

1981 Cure was an in-between day group so to speak. The oxfam chic of the Home Counties of the previous lineup has now been replaced with a darker sound and look they had immersed themselves in with the previous 17 Seconds album. The new minimalism and the vibe were incredibly immersive. There was also now a stained eye that lingered, teased hair, a cool leather jacket. Smith’s flat top was now a well-managed bird’s nest en route to the glorious psychedelic tendrils of his later styles. There was more than a whiff of darkness to the proceedings and if the previous 17 Seconds album had taken the band on another path – Faith was a new journey into that art of the dark that we hailed.

The 1981 Cures were entering a new world of pop culture, which their live-action shoot underscored. Always a great live band, their bass songs now play with austere pitch and space. A space that played with ambiance and texture with the bass guitar maintaining the spine and the key like in a lot of post punk. The profound effect of the Stranglers JJ Burnel was felt in many bands and the final piece of the Cure puzzle, Simon Gallup who had joined the previous album, was one of the many sidekicks of the bass black belt style of the Loose Cannon Strangler. and even had some of his slender moves that saw the bass itself not only grow into a shaking lead, but also sort of become a physical part of the player’s body.

The Cure, however, had found their own space and the A Forest semi-hit was already an alternative club staple and a key part of their live set. They were dealing with introspection and gloominess, but created hypnotic and powerful concerts that attracted you mentally and physically. To set the scene, they were backed up by a rock art assemblage film created by Gallup’s brother, Carnage Visors, whose soundtrack was produced by the band themselves. It was 1981 and it was part of deconstructing traditional rock and trying new ways to create a concert space and move away from what has been proven successful. As the movie faded, tension and expectations built up in the room. The audience was a mix of fanzine heads, proto-goths, art alternatives and punks and angry students.

Smith was, as always, taciturn as the band rocked their set with his melancholy-defining singing voice and making him the pin-up of the dispossessed dark set. They quickly laid their cards on the table with the new album’s introductory song, The Holy Hour, driven by the chorus-laden bass creating the then-futuristic swirling sound of the pedal and suspended in mid-air enjoying the future sound to the fullest. skeletal song. and structure. The music created an introspective and humid atmosphere that drew you into its spider web matrix of dark sound. The set list from the first three albums leaned heavily on the new dark and old songs like 10.15 Saturday Night seemed to have new shadows in their mix and new darker avenues that hadn’t seemed to exist before.

Faith album material may not have been designed for live mosh pit action, but spectral thrills on Other Voices or the Funeral Party were powerful enough to keep the room in a dark trance. A Forest may have seemed like the end of the set when it was treated as the penultimate song, but the band ended with the title track from the new album – a shivering slice of minimalism that underscored a group that was certainly not into the exhilaration and volume of rock but creating this neo-soundtrack, a pulsating atmospheric sound where texture was the key.

These were shape-shifting atmospheres wobbling against the robotic drum machine like the pulse of Lol Tolhurst’s distinctive drum patterns and the bass providing many melodic lines and Smith’s heart-wrenching voice creating spells. The title song flashed into the night, sounding like a church service for the dispossessed of post punk and was a courageous end to a period when bombast still reigned over the world of rock dinosaurs.

Keeping audiences spellbound so far, the band have returned for callbacks of Boys Don’t Cry and Jumping On Someone Else’s Train and Another Journey By train – saucy tracks that come close to the new wave models that saw beer. fly into the pit and as close to a party as 1981 would allow.

The 17 Seconds tour had already seemed like a darker turning point, but the new Cures were immersed in the dystopian chills of their new sound. At the time, it felt like an even deeper journey into that mood than even Joy Division. The years that followed and the adventures in pop and the band’s envelopment in the vastness of the stadium blurred the memories, but in 1981 I felt like The Cure was looking most deeply into. the abyss and came back dressed as a proto Goth biker jacket to make a mind-blowing report from immersive concerts like this that played with rock music and created new vibes and magic.

Where would the group go next? I felt like every step was getting darker and heavier. At the time, we had no idea that the iconic pornography, with its crumbling black heart, the psychedelia of dystopia was just around the corner… a cornerstone album for serious culture and change with another accompanying tour…

In 1981, The Cure was as dark and dangerous as it gets. They were the new game changers and the new standard and their albums were pushing the boundaries. The Faith Tour was the frontier beyond Joy Division and the soundtrack of an Age to Come.