THE CURE CHALLENGE STADIUM PERTH 4/08/07

Wow!

.

.

Three and a half hour set.

.

Most awesome.

.

Myself, Karks, Marco, Gen and new addition to "the crew" Natalie (Linda you missed a good one, but we understand that you don't get to see your boy that often these days) went along and showed the people of Perth how to enjoy a concert, Man what is it with Perth crowds and their "I have to sit down and sit still" approach to gigs. GET UP AND DANCE.

.

We arrived half way through the first song to a great set up, Challenge Stadium isn't all that big, it hosts basketball matches, so every seat/spot was/is a good one. I'd like to say the place was going off but it wasn't. Now I know the Cure crowd is not likely to be overly exuberant, most are concerned that their hair and make up is looking suitably sombre, but Jesus H, at least tap out a beat with your legs or something.

.

The crowd was a hell of a mix in ages, 15 through to 50, which is understandable, The Cure started in 1979, Robert Smith is 48, Porl Thompson is 50, Simon Gallup is 47 and Jason Cooper is the youngun at 40 (thank you wikipedia). But a quick message to all of my young Emo friends in the crowd - The Cure does not belong to you OK! - just wanted to make that clear :)

.

So a lot of the songs at this stage of the gig were lost on a heap of the crowd, they pretty much only know Boys Don't Cry and Love Cats etc (they'd have to wait until the encores for those) Suddenly they played Pictures Of You.......

my video, so not the best quality.

and that started to get a few people onto their feet. A few more well known numbers like Lullaby....

again my vision, so allow for that.

got them moving some more, but it really wasn't until the end of the show and the three encores that people really came alive (sorry no vids of that I was too busy dancing). After the second encore and with a promise of a third, Gen and I found ourselves actually yelling at the crowd and raising our arms in an attempt to make them make some noise. Amazingly it worked, people stood up all around us and started screaming, whistling and calling for more, that's more like it Perth. So out they came for the third encore and everyone got their Love Cats and Boys Don't Cry. Hell that's what we were there for wasn't it.

I'm putting this here simply because I filmed it and it shows how still the mosh pit was...

Open, The Cure

Like I said a three and a half hour set, longest gig I've been to in a while, possibly ever (festivals excepted) and it was fantastic, the acoustics weren't the greatest but at least you could see the band and understand the songs, unlike some venues in Perth. Yeah I was happy with that.

My photography left a bit to be desired last night, but the upside is that it made for some cool effects.

That's actually Robert Smith in close up ^

Yeah I know, but hey it's only 5x digital zoom and it gets shaky at that point. Oh and hi to Luke who I bumped into in the crowd, just back from his wedding in Vegas :waves: