Kiss my hearing goodbye - prayers for ear plugs
I painted a single nail black before realizing it looked terrible. Eyeliner was similarly rejected. In the end, I went sans decoration, clad in tight, button-fly jeans, black Arcade Fire tee shirt and leather jacket.
It was just as well.
The audience for a post millennial Cure show is the most embarrassingly eclectic mess imaginable. I was happy that the only thing drawing attention to me was the fact that I was one of a handful of men under forty years old. We ended up seated two rows back from a trio middle-agers sporting Friday business casual. We spent the first several numbers of the set mocking the air drumming and high-fiving of these sad, old gents in their blue dress shirts and pleated khaki pants. Strangely, though, our mockery turned to admiration when the individuals in question were the only ones with the balls to summon security, resulting in the summary ejection of a chain-smoking white trash couple the female of which had taken to standing and gyrating Fergaliciously during every recognizable radio hit while her doped out boyfriend drifted in and out of consciousness. After that, we were too thankful for our unimpeded view of the outrageously remote stage to ridicule the ad execs any further, instead focusing our contempt on the bevy of toothless, gray-haired hags interspersed throughout the audience, each shaking her one good hip in Robert Smith's general direction.
All in all, I have to say it was a really good show. It was hard to tell from the nosebleeds, but if that was in fact Simon Gallup on bass and not some younger replacement, he looked terribly hot for a forty-seven-year old. Smith, on the other hand, looked like a fatter version of Tiny Tim clad in absurdly baggy black pajamas, but his voice was actually amazing, much more powerful than I realized or expected. Equally surprising was how hard they were rocking - crisp drums, driving bass and heavy, distorted guitars. J. was disappointed that even their most popular tunes did not sound the way she remembered. Instead, Disintegration came off like a NIN remix and most of their performances veered closer to metal than punk (gothic or otherwise).
Still I couldn't complain. I had little to no expectations and was not only pleasantly surprised, but actually impressed. Besides, between the banshee-shriek of the guitars and the epilepsy-inducing light show, I counted myself lucky to have walked out with only mild-to-moderate hearing damage.
It was just as well.
The audience for a post millennial Cure show is the most embarrassingly eclectic mess imaginable. I was happy that the only thing drawing attention to me was the fact that I was one of a handful of men under forty years old. We ended up seated two rows back from a trio middle-agers sporting Friday business casual. We spent the first several numbers of the set mocking the air drumming and high-fiving of these sad, old gents in their blue dress shirts and pleated khaki pants. Strangely, though, our mockery turned to admiration when the individuals in question were the only ones with the balls to summon security, resulting in the summary ejection of a chain-smoking white trash couple the female of which had taken to standing and gyrating Fergaliciously during every recognizable radio hit while her doped out boyfriend drifted in and out of consciousness. After that, we were too thankful for our unimpeded view of the outrageously remote stage to ridicule the ad execs any further, instead focusing our contempt on the bevy of toothless, gray-haired hags interspersed throughout the audience, each shaking her one good hip in Robert Smith's general direction.
All in all, I have to say it was a really good show. It was hard to tell from the nosebleeds, but if that was in fact Simon Gallup on bass and not some younger replacement, he looked terribly hot for a forty-seven-year old. Smith, on the other hand, looked like a fatter version of Tiny Tim clad in absurdly baggy black pajamas, but his voice was actually amazing, much more powerful than I realized or expected. Equally surprising was how hard they were rocking - crisp drums, driving bass and heavy, distorted guitars. J. was disappointed that even their most popular tunes did not sound the way she remembered. Instead, Disintegration came off like a NIN remix and most of their performances veered closer to metal than punk (gothic or otherwise).
Still I couldn't complain. I had little to no expectations and was not only pleasantly surprised, but actually impressed. Besides, between the banshee-shriek of the guitars and the epilepsy-inducing light show, I counted myself lucky to have walked out with only mild-to-moderate hearing damage.