The Cure
June 2003 by Becky Ross
Radar Magazine
At the end of 2002, THE CURE played the most ambitious concert of their career at Berlin’s Tempodrom. It was certainly no ordinary set of greatest hits or latest album tracks. Instead, it featured the band playing the whole of their albums ‘Pornography’ (1982), ‘Disintegration’ (1989) and ‘Bloodflowers’ (1999) live and back-to-back over three intense hours. Now the band are releasing a special 2-disc DVD of this incredible live performance. BECKY ROSS talks with ROBERT SMITH about the ideas behind ‘Trilogy’.
It’s a miracle that Robert Smith ever got up on stage in the first place, let alone perform in front of thousands of fans at last year’s ‘Trilogy’ concerts. He was always much more of a backstage person – at least before The Cure started way back in 1976. “I never sang in public until I was in my late teens,” he shudders. “When I was at school, I never ever was on stage. I was always behind the scenes sorting out the dresses.”
Quite what happened between being a shy adolescent to stepping out in front of a sea of Cure fans at last year’s ‘Trilogy’ concerts is a mystery. But in 2001, an outrageous idea span through Smith’s head that just wouldn’t go away; he wanted to perform three of The Cure’s best-known albums live with the current band line-up.
“We were doing some festivals last year and we were playing so well - each festival was getting better than the one before. In the end I decided that we would attempt to do this idea which I had been mulling over in my mind of doing all three albums in one night and filming it,” Smith explains.
“I suggested it to the others and it was met with incredulity. And I started to think maybe I am going a step too far! After we decided we were going to do it we went into serious rehearsal mode; we rehearsed as much for doing the two nights in Berlin as if we were going to do 200 nights!”
The ‘Trilogy’ idea was cemented when Smith went to see his long-time hero David Bowie at the 2001 Meltdown festival.
“He was one of the other catalysts that made me want to do it,” says Smith. “I didn’t know beforehand but they arrived on stage and played the whole of the ‘Low’ album. I thought ‘What a fucking great idea!’ And that was the moment, coming out of the concert - I was a bit drunk, I have to admit - and I was saying to everyone: ‘We could really do this!’” Everyone thought I was in a dream and eventually I’d forget about it. I thought it can’t be that hard to do.”
The idea for playing the three albums at one concert sprang from the albums themselves, which form the core of The Cure’s enormous twenty-five year back catalogue.
“I always feel that what’s at the heart of these three albums is what’s at the heart of The Cure,” explains Smith. “I think that The Cure are at their best when we’re playing a certain kind of music, so inevitably you’re going to hear echoes of something we’ve done before. We’ve done so many different kinds of things; some have worked and some haven’t. It’s what I love most about the band. So there’s inevitably going to be some similarity, otherwise they wouldn’t have worked as a trilogy.”
And yet the oppressive atmosphere of the first ‘Trilogy’ album meant that the band nearly split. “With ‘Pornography’, I thought it was going to be our last album – so it was very far from being the start of a trilogy!” says Smith.
But somehow the band managed to carry on and as the years progressed, Smith began to see how certain albums worked together.
“When we recorded the ‘Bloodflowers’ album [1999], I was always asking the others to bear in mind that I wanted it to be part of this notional ‘trilogy’ of ‘Pornography’ and ‘Disintegration’ – they were my reference points,” says Smith.
These three albums have been firm favourites with Cure fans – and Smith himself - since they were released, which doubtlessly added to the powerful atmosphere of the concerts.
“What I liked about these three albums is that Cure fans pretty much will pick ‘Pornography’ or ‘Disintegration’ – up until ‘Bloodflowers’ – as their favourite albums. Those two albums have always featured in my top three, too – it’s just something about them that’s indefinable,” says Smith. “It’s very rare when you’ve managed to get something that works in the studio that transcends the actual songs themselves. You can’t go in and make an album like that and say ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Because if you could do that, you’d do it every time. I’d be happy if it had just happened once but the fact that I think it’s happened to us twice is really good.”
Choosing a venue with the right atmosphere for the Trilogy concerts was essential, but ultimately only one city stood out for Smith.
“The mood of the three records is overall pretty dark and I wanted us to be in the right environment when we looked out of the window on the day of the concert,” says Smith. “We’d feel differently if we were in Miami and we were driving to a show playing outside in the sun. But if we were driving to a show and it’s raining and it’s Berlin, it just has a different effect. And over the years when we’ve played Berlin, we’ve always played really good shows there.
“Berlin always felt weird because it was a divided city there was something different about it. Just driving to the venue and looking at the architecture, you feel that the city has got history. Cinematically it’s got history and culturally it means something; it’s got a resonance. I felt it would suit the overall mood of the crowd,” continues Smith. “The easiest thing would’ve been to do it in London. But I just thought that all our family and friends would turn up and it would be a completely different vibe. It just wouldn’t work.”
With the undeniable success of the shows, some people might consider taking the ‘Trilogy’ shows across the world – but it’s not something which interests Smith, who is currently in the studio working on the next Cure album.
“It was a really fulfilling experience but it’s not something I’d like to repeat; a couple of others in the band think we should do it,” he explains.
But he doesn’t regret the original idea for one minute, even though he admits it was a slightly grandiose concept.
“From the moment we’d decided to do the ‘Trilogy’, everyone focused on the film we were going to end up with - otherwise we weren’t going to bother doing it. That’s why it’s an incredible conceit really; it’s just a folly!” he smiles. “It’s like waking up one morning and saying ‘Right, we’re going to hire Wembley!’ Or like people who hire the Albert Hall just so they can conduct an orchestra. The difference being that people wanted to see it - so it wasn’t just me who wanted to do it! But I have no intention of doing it again.”
Even though Smith confesses he enjoys live performances these days more than he ever has, he’s still doesn’t feel like a natural performer.
“I know it sounds really stupid, but even now I don’t feel like a comfortable person on stage - I feel awkward,” he says. “But what I get from it makes up for that feeling, cos when I get involved with the songs, it’s such a good feeling, it’s worth putting myself in that position.”
“When I sit and think about actually walking out on stage I think ‘God, why am I doing this?’” he adds. And yet once the lights go down, he is able to relax.
“I don’t even worry about acting naturally; I just put myself into a persona and just forget what I’m doing,” he says. “A lot of the time when I’m on stage I’m genuinely surprised. There’s one moment on the ‘Trilogy’ film when I open my eyes at the end of a song and I see what I’m thinking – I’d forgotten there was a lot of people there! And it’s really good when you get into that kind of state on stage. That’s when you know it’s working - when you’re lost in something you’re doing.”
As the final note rings out into the dark at the Trilogy concert, obliterated by thousands of screaming fans, Smith must have realised that he’s come a long way from shyly hiding amongst the costumes backstage.
‘THE CURE – TRILOGY – LIVE IN BERLIN’ DVD and VHS is released on June 2 through Eagle Vision.