Three hours with these veteran song-makers is all it takes to get Cured

THERE are concerts, and then there’s The Cure. The British band regularly play three-hour shows, and look like they would happily keep going if it wasn’t for those pesky curfews.

The Cure frontman Robert Smith at Rod Laver Arena. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

THERE are concerts, and then there’s The Cure.

The British band regularly play three-hour shows, and look like they’d happily keep going if it wasn’t for those pesky curfews.

And their diehard fans are also happily in it for the long-haul.

The Cure play a marathon three-hour concert at Rod Laver Arena. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

The beauty of their marathon set is that The Cure get to shoehorn in material that represents all eras of their near 40-year and wildly diverse career.

Effectively, the new tour is the greatest hits of a band who made subverting the mainstream an art form, plus key album tracks.

Robert Smith plays to a delighted crowd. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

There’s the early work (Boys Don’t Cry, A Forest), the twisted electro years (The Walk, Let’s Go to Bed), the jangly pop tunes (Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, High, The Caterpillar, Why Can’t I Be You) and the oddities they turned into major, timeless hits — Close to Me, The Lovecats, Lullaby.

The Cure also love some epic gloom with a view — there’s Pictures of You, Burn, The Edge of the Deep Green Sea and Disintegration.

The band played all their hits, and more. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

They’re balanced out by that time they wrote a wildly happy song — Friday I’m in Love — and Lovesong, a song so simple and beautiful Adele covered it.

For a band dismissed as bleak or miserable, their concerts are actually incredibly joyous affairs. Melbourne fans got two setlist surprises — the rarely aired Doing the Unstuck and Bananafishbones.

Frontman Robert Smith kept the banter to a minimum. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Frontman Robert Smith is ageing suitably disgracefully at 57, keeping banter to a minimum as it’s always been about the music. As much in one night as possible.

That’s indulgent (and potentially taxing) for the casual fan but exhilarating for the true believers for The Cure were, are and always will be, way more than just another band.

Originally published as Three hours with these veteran song-makers is all it takes to get Cured