WORDS AND IMAGES BY PSEUDO GOTH
Towards the end of last year, a friend of mine who works in music production puts a status update on Facebook that says: “Big announcement made soon, massive international act coming to South Africa”. Now, I’m sitting there going, “Yar right, it’s probably Ed Sheeran or Cardi B.” So I sit back, and do what I usually do, and try and get through an unrealistically long work day at the Orwellian nightmare I keep trying to wake myself up from.
A few hours later, I see that it’s none other than The Cure.
Holy shit!
A band that has been so dear to my heart, for so long, that I can’t believe this news to be true.
The following day I rush to Computicket to purchase a ticket, and they haven’t even issued them yet as the concert is months away. I wait, with nothing but a receipt, in anticipation for what is literally a dream come true.
2019 arrives and so does my ticket, and since the beginning of February I haven’t been able to sleep as well as I usually do. This intense, electric excitement is welling inside of me at the prospect of watching a band that helped create so many of the genres of music that I love.
A few days before this monumental event, I have managed to assemble a rowdy bunch of Cure fans and we start our Gothic pilgrimage to watch one of rock ‘n roll’s most interesting, eclectic and dark bands. Friday comes, and we are all certainly very much in love. So much in love that our robust exterior upsets a few bewildered pedestrians en route to the show.
After some run-ins with irate neighbours just before leaving Durban (as our excitement was just too much to contain), we eventually find our way to the N3 highway. We are traveling towards Vereeniging, Gauteng, to pick up the last component of the ensemble.
Mr. Creepy Steve.
Creepy Steve, a legend of the Durban underground party scene who went into hiding a few years back. Kind of like Luke Skywalker in episode 4000 of the new sequel to episode 3999 of the never ending Star Wars franchise, or Obi Wan Kenobi in the first Star Wars film ever made.
After a bit of coaxing, I convince the old Jedi to dust off his robe, change the light bulbs in his light saber, and “get involved”. At first he seems disinterested in the whole idea, but after he brushes over a bit of the Cure’s 80’s era hits, he becomes just as excited as the rest of us.
“Help me Obi Wan, you’re our only hope.”
Just the kind of guide we need to bring balance to the force. Creepy delivered.
We have a briefing in Vereeniging the night before the show, which consists of a fire, beers and the use of various flammable devices. We wake to a full-spread breakfast and descend towards Brakpan like a pack of hungry dogs, ready for what we were about to witness.
The Cure, live in South Africa for the first time.
After roughly an hour in the venue I started to notice the eclectic motley bunch that The Cure attracts. Middle aged goths, young skater punks, trendy jocks. People of all different shapes, sizes and colours, all coming together in a very real and uninhibited kind of way.
Creepy lean’t into my ear and and with very warm breath slurred down my neck “there’s nothing quite like watching an old goth mincing across the veld in the brutal afternoon sun”. Shortly thereafter Creepy threw up, on account of drinking Ballie Mike’s boiling hot whiskey, an act which is in itself is a sight to behold.
The Cure is a band that has never subscribed or fitted in to one set thing or genre, and the crowd reflected this. The weirdo convention had come to town and everyone was there for one reason and one reason only, and that was to witness the dark, twisted, playful and bright world of one of pop’s most unassuming hero’s – Robert Smith.
The support acts were lackluster, the biggest question everyone kept asking is “How does Ard Matthews still get booked?” Then again this is just an opinion, and I know that Just Jinger means and meant a lot to a lot of people, so I should try play nice. But I just couldn’t get my head around the American twang so I went for a beer. Zebra and Giraffe should have stayed on safari, before Fokofpolisiekar brought some much needed angst and energy to the now agitated crowd.
My Afrikaans is limited and maybe my translation is off, but from what I could gather Francois Van Coke was asking the crowd if they had any spliff, so I lit one up in solidarity with the sentiment. They played their title track “Fokofpolisiekar” and then I realised something about how important this statement is for South Africans at large. We might be divided by race, politics, culture and religion but at least we can all agree on one thing. When the cops pull in, we tell them to “Fuck off”!
By now the energy was getting even weirder, The Rob Father was playing some fantastic tracks ranging from The Chats to the Talking Heads , and everyone was in full swing. More and more strange characters started coming closer to the front of the stage and for one of the first times in my life I felt like I belonged, because in this crowd no body belonged, and in that a sense of sincere connection was created.
Then like a blinding flash of light Plainsong, the opening track from their highly atmospheric 1989 album Disintegration erupts through the speakers, and everyone is in a trance, slowly ascending to the front of the stage to get their first sight of the man and the myth, the songs that have been so close to all of us for so long. Providing comfort and relief in our darkest hours. Finally there it was standing in front of us tall and proud in all its macabre glory We had finally found a place to cure all our sadness, and a sound and sentiment where we escape to, a realm where we play with our nightmares instead of fearing them. This is what that opening moment of this concert meant to me and I could feel it meant the same to a lot of others there. It was a religious experience and for a few hours the lawns just outside the fabulously grotesque Carnival City became our Gothic church.
Soon after that I lost all my friends in the frenzied attraction to the stage, I was alone in a sea of atmospheric sounds and the mood was set, everyone was fixated, I look to my left and none other than SA folk/punk legend Shaun Richards is standing next to me. He’s an old friend so he grabs my hand and we try and get as close to the front as possible. I have one of the best seats in the house as In between Days ignites the crowd into a harmony that isn’t possible during the sad and reflective era of Distingeration. Love is certainly in the air and I turn to Shaun as Robert Smith busts out a riff that could be placed in any modern indie or post punk band. I remark “Can you believe it Shaun, we are here watching the guy that pretty much invented the music we love”.
Nature calls and I really needed to pee, so I rush off to the toilet, and by the time I get back to the stage A Forest starts playing and I find myself running through a jungle of people, as I’ve lost everyone I came to the show with. I start to interact with so many different characters a goth puts his arm around me as we sing every word back at the stage, until I notice a group of trance hippies laying it down as if its an outdoor party. I stop and just dance my arse off with the misfits as if its 1984 again, until one of friends Ballie Mike grabs my shoulder. After that we try again to get as close as we can to the front, as The Cure launch into some of their darkest and heaviest material, you can see how this era of The Cure influenced modern metal such as Deftones, (they even covered If only Tonight we could sleep) and it was almost as if Robert Smith was sending out a clear message “If you want the light happy pop side of The Cure, you’re going to have to get through the dark stuff first”. After a brutal onslaught of their heavier material, we can now see the light, and I’m not sure which song was played first, maybe it was Friday I’m in Love or Close To Me, but the energy had completely shifted and now everyone was smiling, dancing and connecting, the band even looked more relaxed.
I can’t recall how long the set went on for, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, and most of the material I had heard before, which is great when you’re there to see one of your all time favourite bands.
All I remember is they finished the set with all their older material, Accuracy, Killing an Arab, Boys Don’t Cry and Jumping Someone Else’s Train all made a beautiful appearance, suped up for a sonic live experience. Then all of a sudden, The Cure sounded like a young, brash, youthful punk band and just like a dying shooting star it was over.
For me The Cure represents real love, because love is light and beautiful and enduring. But love is also dark and unforgiving, yet if we can persist through all its layered complexities, we can create something utterly beautiful in a world that has become extremely estranged, dark and hostile. The Cure represents the vulnerability of being alive, the darkness of heartache. And commitment, just real commitment, commitment to art and music and creation. Commitment to manifesting a safe space, for all the people in the world who just don’t fit in.
Aweh Online 
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