This gig had been a long time coming - in fact I didn't truly believe I'd ever see The Cure live again, nor ever get the "real" experience of a three-hour show.

We saw The Cure at Livid 2000, a disappointingly short experience where they were forced to leave the stage after about an hour and fifteen minutes. The reason, ostensibly, was the concert had to stop due to noise restrictions - yet Lou Reed droned on for another 45 minutes on another stage. On the flip side, we did get to see 10:15 Saturday Night at 10:15 on a Saturday night (cheesy but fun!). Plus Green Day beforehand were actually quite amusing, including the legendary "Fuckin Dan!" moment.

(Set list from 2000... Main: out of this world, watching me fall, want, fascination street, open, the loudest sound, shake dog shake, from the edge of the deep green sea, inbetween days, trust, the kiss, prayers for rain, one hundred years, 39, bloodflowers. Encore: 10:15 saturday night, killing an arab.) From The Cure Concerts Guide

So anyway, last night's gig was just about everything I'd hoped for. It was a set list to please old fans, with tons of old songs I just didn't think would get played. I kept recognising the song they were about to play from the little tuning twangs while they swapped guitars :)

Sydney set list, updated as per the cure concerts guide:

(Tape as intro)

Main Set

1. Open
2. Fascination Street
3. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
4. Kyoto Song
5. The Blood
6. The End of the World
7. Us or Them
8. The Walk
9. Alt.end
10. Lovesong
11. A Letter To Elise
12. Pictures Of You
13. Lullaby
14. A Strange Day
15. The Figurehead
16. Push
17. How Beautiful You Are
18. InBetween Days
19. Friday
20. Just Like Heaven
21. If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
22. The Kiss
23. Shake Dog Shake
24. Never Enough
25. Wrong Number
26. One Hundred Years
27. Shiver & Shake
28. End

Encore 1

29. Plainsong
30. Disintegration

Encore 2

31. Hot! Hot! Hot!
32. Lets go to Bed
33. Close to Me
34. Why Cant I be You

Encore 3

35. A Forest
36. Boys Dont Cry

Robert closes with "See you again"

The lineup was three guitars plus drums. With no keyboard I knew from the start some songs would be out, which was a little disappointing (I have a dream of seeing them play Homesick). But then Porl produced sounds that weren't really meant to come out of a guitar, filling in for everything from violin to accordian. Impressive, although we did have to laugh at some of his fuckups - he wasn't having a perfect night :)

They teased me by not playing A Forest until the last encore. Price of admission right there. Sure, it wasn't one of their 20-minute jam versions, but I realised last night that I've wanted to hear A Forest live ever since a mate at high school described A Forest as played at the Wish Tour gig. That's over fifteen years ago!

Why yes, I am a huge Cure fanboy, thanks for asking :)

Last night also clarified something. I like the cure when they're boppy, I really like them when they're mopey, but I love them when they're angry. The Kiss + Shake Dog Shake blew my socks off. There must have been some trendies there last night who only knew the radio-friendly happy stuff, wondering what the hell was going on (and fuck them, eh!).

So anyway. Last night was about 3hrs 15min of pure treat. I was surprised when I looked at the Brisbane set list and realised there's still a stack of songs I'd dearly love to see live - Jumping Someone Else's Train, Fire In Cairo, Grinding Halt, At Night, M, anything off Faith... actually seeing them play their cover of Purple Haze would also be cool. They have such a massive back catalogue, no wonder their gigs run to three hours ;)

Robert Smith last night: "Never thought three hours would be too short..."

Couldn't agree more. I reckon another two hours might have just about done it ;)

Other random notes...

• Could have carried a small nuclear weapon in - no bag check whatsoever. If I'd known I'd have taken my camera and got some shots!
• Despite zero security check, they wouldn't sell you a bottle of water with a lid. What's up with that?
• Lots of people wearing colour. That's just WRONG, people ;)
• Overheard in the merch lineup: "The tshirts are all so goth, but I'm going to get one anyway." Colour me fucking surprised, the tshirts are a little goth! What gig did these people think they were attending? :)
• I am utterly tickled by the fact I now own a Cure stubby cooler. Cure stubby cooler, people! I can now be a goth yobbo.
• Best surprise of the night: old friends from Brisbane sitting one row away from us!
• Speaking of old friends... Nick has so firmly mashed The Walk and Blue Monday in my head that even at the gig, I couldn't help thinking of it.
• Weird thing about the gig: constant stream of people going in and out. I've never seen a gig where people so constantly churned in and out - some people must have spent more time at the bar outside than in the gig. Apparently though with the sheer volume, you could still listen perfectly well out there. It was loud, like LOUD.
• There was a woman a couple of rows down from us... conservatively dressed, looked like she was in her fifties maybe. But she went off, danced her butt off and had a whale of a time. Rock on!

Can't wait for them to come back :) Currently auditing the ipod and working out what I need to go and buy to replace the tapes which wore out years ago. Yep, tapes. I'm a Cure fan because of all the cassettes we traded at high school...

Labels: gig, lastfm:event=264512, sydney, the cure

There's a saying that you should do something every day which scares you. Frankly I think it's bullshit, since every single day would either be impractical or require being afraid of the toaster.

But you do have to do things that scare you. The past week has ranged from 'nervous' to 'bloody terrified', so I think I'm set for a while.

On Friday I resigned at Griffith, to take up a new job with a little media company you might have heard of. I guess the journalism degree will be vaguely relevant to my career after all ;) I'll still be doing web development, but it'll be interesting to work in the media industry.

So, this means we're moving to Sydney. Hence the mexico reference. I start the new job in just four weeks. Hellfuck!

It wasn't an easy decision - first off to be leaving a job that, on average, has been great. Six years seem to have flown past, especially these last couple of years working with a bunch of talented crazy people. What more can you ask for, eh? :)

Leaving Brisbane isn't taken lightly either. There are a lot of people and places here that we love and will miss. But we also know it's time to get out of the comfort zone and try a new city.

We couldn't decide between Sydney and Melbourne, so I applied for jobs in both and thought fate would decide...

As it turned out, I had to choose between two completely different jobs - one in Sydney and one in Melbourne. There was sort of a third option, but we didn't fancy moving to Oslo. In the space of three days I went from "oh yeah we're looking to move" to "right, ok, I have two opportunities and basically want both of them".

But you can't have both, so I closed my eyes and jumped.

In the end I'm sad to leave Brisbane, disappointed to turn down the Melbourne job and excited to accept the Sydney job. Then a big dash of freaked out about the logistics of getting down there in time!

So, there you have it :)

Labels: sydney

a brief(-ish) post now that i'm back in town... flew back in on the last flight last night.

sydney was fantastic. had a great time.

day one

flew down, eventually, despite the first plane being grounded and our flight being 1.5hrs late. collected from airport by wonderful host; set up in spare room and then coordinated dinner/gig with the ever-sexy Rocksluts. sadly i was unwell and unable to enjoy dinner at Betty's Soup Kitchen, but the company was wonderful :) then on to gig... Covenant rocked our socks, boots and pants off. the trip was worth every cent right there.

day two

morning was an attempt at recovery - we were exhausted before we even left so didn't try to fight a sleep in. spent a highly enjoyable afternoon doing nothing more than wandering around the harbour taking photos; i think it'd take me a very long time to take that place for granted.

day three

Taronga Zoo was great. i thought it was an odd idea when first suggested, but having been there i thoroughly recommend a visit. you'll need at least half a day though. I SAW MEERKATS! ..and bought out the gift shop's supply of meerkat soft toys (only two, but still). ferry across harbour. Museum of Contemporary Art was good, although we had to rush a bit and were a bit tired to properly soak it up. the MCA shop has a great range of odd stuff - picked up a set of "invisible cards" (you can see through them, but can't see the actual markings - basically just a nice bit of funky design). ferry back across harbour... i loved travelling by ferry. in fact all of sydney's public transport was good (we did ferry, train and bus while we were there). i now think brisbane's public transport sucks even harder, which i didn't think was possible.

day four

shopping expedition. we got through the Pitt Street Mall, then along Oxford Street almost to Paddington before our feet gave out and we ran out of time. as always happens when travelling, we were asked for directions to the place we were trying to find :) credit card a little sore but we both have new coats and groovy shirts. i have a leather coat; 25% off the marked price which was already 50% off... hooray for closing-for-renovation sales. staggered back in time for dinner, photos of everyone and drive to airport. basically walked straight onto plane and were in the air a few minutes later. a little bumpy and the inflight music didn't work properly for the second time...hrrmph... but heard one of my all-time favourite Bill Cosby comedy routines so all good. ransomed car out of long-term parking and headed home.

-thump-

can't wait to do it all again, although it'll have to wait until we've made peace with our credit cards :)

Labels: sydney, travel