Location: Arena Concerti (Fiera Milano Rho) / Milan / Italy
Concert date: 07.07.2012
Attendance: 20,000
Ticket price: €63.50
Blazing sun, scorched ground and Italian hipsters are certainly neither the classic nor an especially fitting herald of an upcoming gig by one of the darkest and most melancholic post-punk bands out there, the legendary The Cure. Daylight itself is the complete opposite of the band’s image and sound, which also makes it the complete opposite of Robert Smith, the singer, guitarist and bandleader who supposedly sleeps by day and does his makeup, practices guitar and writes melancholy love songs by night. Besides the headliners The Cure, assorted local acts played, and the next biggest names were Crystal Castles and New Order. The latter certainly don’t justify the number of sleeveless retro T-shirts and pink glasses on sweaty Italian bodies, while Crystal Castles are surely right up the alley of a crowd hungry for mass-market indie electronics. But that still doesn’t answer the question of why there was so much of that kind of crowd. At their very core, Crystal Castles and The Cure have nothing in common. Not the vibe, not the musical approach, not the history, not the sound… the only common thread is that Robert Smith once guested on a Castles track.
So the Crystal Castles set went by largely unattended and unnoticed. Apart from really bad sound and annoying bass, it offered nothing but water glasses tipping over on the tables from the overpowering noise, which made them even less appealing, since it was really hot and the water was expensive. Even the occasional dancing of people in Andy Warhol T-shirts couldn’t save the set from being dismal – dismally played and dismally attended. Which only deepens the mystery of the Italian hipster masses.
The sun finally started to set, and behind the screens the mood picked up in anticipation of the Joy Division legacy, Britain’s New Order. They were born after the death of another icon of 80s post-punk, Ian Curtis. The remaining three members formed the band – guitarist Bernard Sumner, who took over the mic from Ian, bassist Peter Hook, and drummer and later keyboardist Stephen Morris, joined by a good friend of the band, Gillian Gilbert, on keyboards and occasional guitar. In the last century, New Order thus carried on Joy Division’s musical heritage and Ian Curtis’s vision with uncompromisingly dark, if at times danceable music and personal, confessional lyrics that didn’t embody Ian’s brilliant way with words, but still kept the spirit of the dead frontman and the band alive. So it was strange that for most of the crowd New Order were the main attraction. And that they got everyone into dance mode. How the hell do you dance to Ian’s visions of death and distorted minor-key bass lines? New Order’s music is supposed to be in the veins of Ian and Joy Division. Supposed to be.
What followed was the exact opposite of what I expected. It was a sort of bad copy of an open-air rave, where fluorescent green outfits were swapped for sleeveless tees of obscure black-and-white indie films, and drugs for iPhones with a polaroid-photo app. It was some as-yet-undiscovered circle of Dante’s hell for people with bad taste in music. It was a desecration of the Joy Division name. New Order managed to transform from an excellent band into popularized party electronica with the lyrics of a modern-day U2, wrapped in retro cellophane and tied with a bow of some obscure color. No wonder bassist Peter Hook left the band five years ago and now only plays in his own band, Peter Hook And The Light, which makes the kind of music New Order should be making today. But the aforementioned Italian hipsters loved it. At the start of the show they neatly put on their pink sunglasses, unhooked their suspenders, set down their straw hats and started jumping and screaming like mad. But all that would still have been digestible. An hour of bad music with Robert Smith on the horizon is always digestible. But New Order went a step further than I expected – they played two Joy Division covers. And they played them as present-day New Order. »Isolation« and »Love Will Tear Us Apart« became anthems for a sweaty, grinning, half-naked crowd in rapper baseball caps, wildly singing along to songs they probably had no idea Curtis wrote for Joy Division. A happy, smiling, dancing Ian Curtis is evidently the new icon of today’s hipsterdom. And with that, the mystery of the Italian hipsters is finally solved, and behind it lies a truly disgusting desecration of one of the most creative legacies of the 80s music world.
Up to this point the report might seem like a takedown of Crystal Castles and New Order. Trust me, it isn’t. This report is a love letter to The Cure. It’s a love letter to the incredible Robert Smith, whose almost four-hour set wiped out every wound inflicted by the previous two bands, whose names I forgot (thanks, Smith). All this writing should be dedicated to the tireless Robert Smith, who embodies not just music as such but all artistic creation and re-creation. His persona, supposedly the visual blueprint for the birth of goths, remains the same as in the era of The Cure’s best-known albums, like Faith, Pornography and later Disintegration. In all that time he’s simply written enough material to allow himself a show like this one. Enough material for four hours. Enough material for a set that’s varied, charismatic, emotional, full of phenomenal personal reinterpretations of songs played countless times before, and therefore, in the end – incomparable. That’s why the whole concert journey was effectively a timeline of The Cure’s history. Since Disintegration is their most successful album, the openers »Plainsong«, »Pictures of You« and »Lullaby« were the perfect choice.
(in the clip you can watch all three of the songs mentioned)
Robert Smith is a kind of embodiment of unique dark, melancholic tenderness, with an incredibly one-of-a-kind voice that’s perfectly in sync with his performance, lyrics, personality and the band’s music. His eternal love lyrics (the eternal theme of love supposedly got on the other band members’ nerves something fierce, which is probably why Smith is the only one who’s been in the band from the start and is therefore practically synonymous with The Cure) are always steeped in a certain melancholy, delivered in a dark key, whether that atmosphere comes from the lyrics, Smith’s voice or the instrumental backing. Smith knows how to turn every motif, through his inner creative voice, into a characteristic artistic confession, a mold known since the start of The Cure’s career that never gets stale – and that’s exactly why Robert Smith is a symbol of artistic creation. Successfully updating eternal themes, like love in this case, finding a way to bring worn-out, overused lines close to people so they still hit home… all of that is surely the true fire at the very core of an artist’s sense of purpose, the thing that drives the artist and ultimately seeks out the muses, dictates the letters, notes or lines, and gives them not just professional but life-long motivation.
After winning the crowd over with the best-known songs, Robert Smith started working his way through his vast catalog of albums, and with every finished note he got more relaxed, smiling and genuinely happy. It’s exactly these contrasts that make Smith so endearing and likable – the shyly, almost awkwardly dancing dark figure, the smile on the black-smeared face, the gentle, slightly menacing, echoing vocal about lost love and a lover’s makeup. Words are, as is so often the case when writing about music, superfluous.
(for lack of superlatives to describe The Cure’s performance, check out another clip of the show in question)
Since Robert Smith had of course barely gotten up and was still totally lively and rested after the show, he gave an interview to ViviMilano, which you can watch below. In it he talks mainly about the inscription he’s had on his guitar since last year – »CITIZENS NOT SUBJECTS« – which criticizes the British monarchy, since he’s a republican. He also briefly talks about his earlier shows in Italy and about this time around, which was especially memorable for him.
Heineken Jammin’ Festival may not have delivered a perfect concert experience, but it certainly delivered one of the most memorable ones ever. There were plenty of alternatives to just standing in front of the stage, from playing guitars on an Xbox to shooting hoops, which took it beyond the music itself. It’s surely becoming one of the leading festivals in Europe, and if it keeps putting on concert events like this, it won’t run out of visitors, hipsters or not.
Once again, Concert Freak got us to the festival safely, offering transport and tickets for all kinds of concerts by the biggest acts – more at koncerti.net.
Setlist
Crystal Castles:
1. plauge
2. Baptism
3. Courtship Dating
4. Crimewave
5, Air War
6. Alice Practice
7. Black Panther
8. Celestica
9. Suffocation
10. I Am Made Of Chalk
11. Not in Love
New Order:
1. Elegia
2. Crystal
3. Regret
4. Isolation (Joy Division cover)
5. Ceremony
6. Bizarre Love Triangle
7. True Faith
8. 586
9. The Perfect Kiss
10. Blue Monday
11. Temptation
12. Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover)
The Cure:
1. Plainsong
2. Pictures of You
3. Lullaby
4. High
5. The End of the World
6. Lovesong
7. Sleep When I’m Dead
8. Push
9. In Between Days
10. Just Like Heaven
11. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
12. The Hungry Ghost
13. Play for Today
14. A Forest
15. Primary
16. The Walk
17. Friday I’m in Love
18. Doing the Unstuck
19. Trust
20. Want
21. Wrong Number
22. One Hundred Years
23. Disintegration
———————
24. Shake Dog Shake
25. Bananafishbones
26. The Top
———————
27. Dressing Up
28. The Lovecats
29. The Caterpillar
30. Close to Me
31. Just One Kiss
32. Let’s Go to Bed
33. Why Can’t I Be You?
———————
34. Boys Don’t Cry
