Challenge Stadium, Perth, Australia

Danny altered my perception of what goths could be. He was one of the cheeriest blokes I'd met in my life. He was a serious Cure fan, with a sizable collection of concert bootlegs and the Edward Scissorhands hair meticulously held up. Back then I was living in the Bournemouth cul de sac, long before Bournemouth became sexy. It was winter time, and the sky hung like lead over the sea. Claire was Danny's devotchka. They were probably two of the best adjusted teenagers I'd ever met. Recently, an Asian friend of mine in her footloose way bounced up to some goths outside St Wesley's church in Perth and asked them what its like to he a goth. "Very dark", she was told. Bullshit. Being a refugee in Sudan, that's dark.

This is a first for me in so many ways. Despite the years of devotion it's the first time I've seen The Cure. Sinful but true. It's the first stadium gig I've been to, excluding the Live and Local atrocity which we shall do our best to erase. It's the first time I've seen a band play for three hours, plus an extra twenty minutes or os, including three encores; which normally I'd chastise as showboating, but the material in each I feel is best served in separate bursts. They group their songs together in mini-clusters by album, so with each major Cure release pursuing its own bent this makes sense. I'm really not into the mega-event stadium thing, replete with seething masses. I relish a stage where you can smell the band. This could be worse, down on the floor maybe twelve rows back. No sign of the bar.

With little aplomb, much of the first half hour is spent shoegazing, or stage-wings gazing, as Robert Smith gives the distant impression something might be haunting him there. They open ominously with Open, and with the lines "i really don't know what i'm doing here, i really think i should've gone to bed tonight", I'm starting to think they won't go the distance. The weighty bass of Fascination Street has Mac all in a lava, but its seems largely an exercise in finding their footings, with A Strange Day alas, a part of it; infused with the buzz of the auto-pilot. Nonetheless, even at 85% nuclear fall-out factor it's still a trance-inducing zombie generator. And even when its not fully charged, it's always interesting. Some highly unexpected numbers roll out, like the mexicana strum of The Blood. Lullaby replaces the violins with staccato guitar and The Walk has monster bass groove to it. There's even a funky side that had totally slipped my mind. Hot Hot Hot!!! may have some pretty corny lyrics, but it certainly has a whole lot a waggle, whilst hearing If Only Tonight We Could Sleep is like being reunited with a buried piece of my brain. Smith in good shape, barely looks a day older. Possibly its the makeup. After about half an hour he giggles, and admits he hasn't been talking because he's only just remembered they're in an English speaking country. Spot the band that's just been touring Asia.

The nervous laugh seems like a release. The rolling drums of Push fire out and we hit a pop driven purple patch. It has some of the best crowd response, mainly from part-time-niks who haven't warmed to album tracks they don't recognise. There's not a lot of activity happening here on the floor. What's become of Perth audiences? It never used to be like this. There's a few goth chics moping and non-committally nodding. The crusty dood to our right is cutting some purposeful rug. Maybe its part and parcel of the whole three hour experience, pacing it. I don't know, this is outside my territory. Just Like Heaven is like the fabric of a dream; transcendent. In Between Days has the place jumping, but we're soon back into obscure-land with punters guessing whether The Kiss is an instrumental or will Smith start singing sometime. Fortunately for an epic length show there's no crazy indulgent solos. Even A Forest where they could really get lost, is kept economical. The hardcore epitome is reached with One Hundred Years. Never mind Open, imagine walking out on giant state and singing "does it matter if we all die".

The mix excellent. Exquisitely balanced. The only falling down point is when some of the cheap F/X of the Seventeen Seconds era jar against the stadium guitars. Much of their early material just doesn't fit the big room. I'm seeing them play Boys Don't Cry here in Challenge Stadium and imagining them in a South London pub. But this is the modern day reality. In Singapore daytime TV adverts were proclaiming "spend an evening with The Cure". Somehow these awkward, occasionally shy misfits, firmly entrenched in their own little idiom, became icons. Or at least Smith did. He is The Cure. No matter the efforts of his supporting peepz who are tight, on point and in Peter Hook, I mean Simon Gallup, have energy. Smith is almost always the focal point. He's an odd stage presence. When he talks to the audience he mumbles a bit and occasionally doesn't finish his sentences. He sure as Hell doesn't ask us whether we're ready to rock. But behind it all is an honesty. He may be hiding under make-up and wearing close to invisible black, but there's no pretense to be some dynamo showman, just the unpolished oddball who only took the role behind the mic because the rank performances of a previous vocalist almost sparked a riot.

It seems like I've spent so much time lately planning the future, trying to cope with the present, the time to reflect on the past has all but vanished. Midway through Pictures of You several years worth of broken dreams unravel. There's a sensation like falling, as the rest of the room still sways around me. I'd say that my only regret is that this song doesn't go on forever, but it isn't. Somewhere on the other side of the planet there's a full moon mounted in the glass roof of a conservatory that knows the meaning of this. But the song does finish. And we move on.

By the end of the third encore, as the existential dogma of Killing an Arab twists to its ultimate climax, its like having completed a mythological chronicle. So much ground covered; not only the career of the band but different associations I have. And I've never seen this many smiling goths. Danny would be chuffed.

Transcribed by Reverend Chris.