Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 20/03/08

The Cure have been around for so long that, like your gran or "Sounds Of The Sixties" host Brian Matthews, it's far too easy to take them for granted. Who, in 1979, would have predicted sales in excess of 27 million albums from a band that would see off and outlast - deep breath - new wave, post-punk, C86, acid house, baggy, grunge, Britpop, trip-hop, the New Rock Revolution, nu-rave and post-punk once again? Certainly not the first wave of miserablists who hitched their wagon to The Cure nearly 30 years ago and quite probably not Robert Smith.

If Smith does have any thoughts on the subject then tonight, he's keeping them to himself. Having now morphed completely into his "South Park" caricature - the thatched nest atop his head is matched brilliantly by kohl eyes and a wound for lips - The Cure's cuddly frontman is far more concerned with ploughing his way though 40 or so songs in three-and-a-bit hours than he is in imparting trade secrets.

Yet listening to The Cure as they embark on this Zeppelinesque marathon, the secret to their continued popularity unfolds with the subtlety of flora in the springtime. Tapping into a never-ending supply of adolescent angst has ensured The Cure successive generations of fans but, as evidenced in this hangar of a venue, their ability to flip through genres with an almost casual ease ensures that there's something for everybody.

The band's set is divided into so many varying parts that different sections will involuntarily cry out 'Yes!" whenever their favourite facet of The Cure makes an appearance. So it is that the none-more-black contingent receive anguish en masse ("Strange Days", "One Hundred Years"), pop fans get their jollies ("In Between Days", "Just Like Heaven"), the train-spotters are catered for over and above the call of duty ("Push", "Shake Dog Shake") while the casual observers get treated to "The Lovecats".

Admittedly, not all of it works. The squall of "Never Enough" is as awful now as it was then and "The Walk" is horribly dated while the occasionally clinical execution reveals less a band and more Smith, bassist and lieutenant Simon Gallup and two other blokes on guitar and drums. Still, be that as it may, their strike rate is ridiculously high and their dusting off of "A Forest", "Play For Today", "Primary" and "Killing An Arab" (tonight renamed as "Killing Another") has the purists reaching for the smelling salts.

Tonight's new song, "The Boy I Never Knew", suggests there's still much fun to be had from these unlikely veterans. Like the thousands that have packed this arena have realised, The Cure are worth holding on to, not least because, like your gran, they won't be around forever.

by Julian Marszalek