Tuesday, June 28, 2016

For The Record #1

I'm trying to generate some new writing on a regular basis Here's my first stab at what I hope to be an ongoing column entitled "For The Record," focusing on records and live concert experiences.

For The Record #1: The Cure live at UIC Pavilion, June 10, 2016


For the record, I didn’t anticipate the first time I laid eyes on Robert Smith in the flesh would be with my head tilted forward through bifocals. With a hefty paunch and gray hair. With my 13-year-old daughter in tow. And my wife of 19 years. I did not feel cool. Honestly, I felt old and fat but thrilled to finally experience The Cure live, to ceremonially scratch off one of the few remaining names on my list of “bands to see before I die.”

From the winter of 1985 on, listening to The Cure always made me feel cool: underground, gothic, intelligent, isolated, misunderstood. I was part of an exclusive club. Only one other person I knew of in my small, northwest Wisconsin town listened to The Cure--Jack Rothenbuehler, and he was perhaps the coolest person in Chetek. A few overnight VHS-movie-watching/cassette-dubbing marathons at Jack’s house poured the musical foundation upon which I stand firmly today: U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Midnight Oil, Bauhaus, among many others. A trip to Deaf Ear Records in La Crosse, WI, (again with Jack) yielded my first actual Cure tape: Standing On A Beach (used). Many would follow: The Top, Head on the Door, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. MTV provided my first glimpse of the band’s outrageous hair, stylish suits and not-very-subtle make-up. Watching Robert Smith “spinning on that dizzy edge” in the “Just Like Heaven” video cemented The Cure as an audio-visual staple in my life from then on. (I still wish I had the iconic black and white “Boys Don’t Cry” and neon-faced “Head on the Door” posters from my high school days.)

Concert opportunities in my neck of the woods were limited, and I stuck to collecting tapes and CDs in lieu of pursuing long-shots of catching The Cure live. I settled for a VHS copy of In Orange first, then embraced Trilogy (still one of the most gorgeous concert videos I’ve seen) and was grateful for Festival 2005 (sort of). 

Then my daughter started discovering The Cure. 

Then my friends Cindy and Karl posted about their Cure experience at Riot Fest 2014.

Then the 2016 North American tour announcement came.

Hallelujiah!


Standing in line at the UIC Pavilion, I was greatly relieved that I was neither the oldest, fattest nor  “uncoolest” fan awaiting the show. The crowd was, well, weird, running the gamut from pasty, blue-haired Goths in full make-up to a few couples who looked as if they just walked off the 18th green. In my Beneath The Planet of the Apes T-shirt and cargo shorts, I imagine I was leaning toward the latter. Still, if you were to peel away my outer shell, you’d uncover a genuine, corpse-like Goth snarling away behind the gray hair and bifocals. I had to try to remember this when scoping out the rest of the “I can’t fucking believe THAT person is a Cure fan!” crowd. 

Listening to The Cure alone in my basement or isolated in my car perpetuated the illusion that I was somehow their only true fan. Robert Smith spoke to me directly. He was much darker, more manic, more romantic than me, but his pained voice and melancholy melodies where the shape of my thoughts. Sitting inside a 6,000-plus-seat sports arena full of other people who, I assumed, felt the same way was honestly disillusioning. 

Our seats? Also disillusioning. We were definitely in the “nosebleed” section with a giant, rivot-splayed beam blocking the screens in back of the stage, and a speaker that covered up Roger O’Donnell entirely. My Cure live dream was dying, further shit upon by the cutting conversation unfolding in the seats directly behind us: two divorcees discussing (loudly) their (banal) philosophies on (failed) relationships and (“soap opera”) religion. I wanted to conjure that inner Goth, turn and spit, “You WILL shut the fuck up when the music starts!” But I silently stared at the dusty, battleship beam in front of me and prayed for Scottish openers The Twilight Sad to drown out the chatter. (I was pleased The Twilight Sad sounded even more like Chameleons UK than The Smiths live, proving they are worthy cohorts on a Cure tour. Kudos to frontman James Graham for writhing, dancing and gesticulating as wildly as an engaging frontman should.)


Can’t you sit and “dance” (i.e. sway awkwardly while holding your beer with one finger pointing in the air) for God’s sake, I thought when the mom in the black Eddie Bauer dress one row up from us rose in salute to “Lovesong” and “Just Like Heaven,” two of the four songs she recognized from MTV “back in the day.” As The Cure played through a dreamy mix of deep cuts and alternative radio staples, I was once again torn--how could this band that made me feel like such an outsider resonate with the likes of Drunk Mom? The feeling was laughingly adolescent but nonetheless unshakeable: The Cure is my band, not yours. Naivete leaves an indelible mark on a person’s soul. 

This crowd clash of MTV binge watcher and cassette Walkman disciple continued throughout the night with true Smith devotees coming out ahead: “Shake Dog Shake,” “Screw,” “Primary,” “One Hundred Years,” “Jupiter Crash,” “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea,” “The Exploding Boy,” and my favorite of the night “Give Me It” energized me and other longtime fans as much as “Pictures of You” and “Friday I’m In Love” satiated the ‘90s flashbackers. 

The most impactful moments of the night came when I diverted my tilted gaze from the faraway stage to catch my daughter’s profile, her starstruck eyes glazed from the spectacle of laser lights and projected backdrops, and her lips mouthing along in sync with Robert Smith’s lyrics, which have scrolled continuously inside me like a poetic teleprompter for decades.

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