AUGUST

New Zealand / Australia tour. Originally, a few shows were planned but the Cure had to play 31 concerts to satisfy the demand including 5 shows in a row in Melbourne and in Perth. They also appeared on the local press for incidents that took place in Auckland (smashed door and furnitures at their hotel). The official explanation was a party that went out of control.

26th
Melbourne, Prospect Hill
Tiredness and tension could be felt that night and yet the show went on and on (90 minutes !). A Forest from the last encore was probably the weirdest version from all times with Robert ad libing words like a lunatic and playing on purpose horrible guitar solos ! He would declare at the end of the show : "Our nightmare will end this evening".


SEPTEMBER

The band returned to England. Matthieu Hartley left almost immediately. The Cure became a trio again, working on new songs. An unreleased one called Drowning dates from this period, with Lol on guitar (an experiment). Demos were recorded at Morgan studios at the end of the month, but they were rejected : The Holy Hour, Primary (musically different), Going Home Time...


OCTOBER

28 dates around Europe were set up visiting Sweden for the first time. An opportunity to work on some of the new songs with Robert making up the words every night. Lots of those improvised lyrics refered to Fuchsia's Gormengharst (by Mervyn Peake), a book that he was reading while on tour and litterally falling in love with the character ! Later, Fuchsia would appear on The Drowning Man's lyrics.

Like often on these early tours, a series of disasters occured : breakdown van, blown up P.A, incidents with bikers in a bar in Brussels, power cut in Berlin (on A Forest)... But the band was in good spirits and excited, as heard during the shows : most songs were played much faster than before. Robert often dedicated Primary to "everybody who's dead" or to Ian Curtis.

Sometimes, 10:15 Saturday Night, A Forest or Play For Today (more frequently) would be played again during the encores. When the tour reached France, Do You Wanna Touch ? (originally by Gary Glittler -glam rock icon !) was added to the repertoire. The back vocals ("Oh yeah") being provided by Simon Gallup.

The tour reaching Brussels gave the opportunity to tape a live version of A Forest in a TV studio (on their day off). But the TV director was quite a perfectionist : he made them play the song over and over to get the best version according to him.

One of the most remarkable live performances occured in Amsterdam, a week later, with Robert Smith changing the lyrics on more songs than usually. The show was filmed by the Veronica TV channel. An interview was even conducted backstage, the first one of the band on TV, who looked very nervous and a bit bothered by the questions. On this occasion, Robert claimed the Cure had three new albums coming out on the following week.


NOVEMBER

UK Tour. After the first concert, the band discovered that their jackets were stolen backstage. Music papers then published an appeal from Robert saying that he didn't care about the jacket but would be grateful if the memorabilia (buttons with sentimental value) could be sent to the Fiction office.

The shows were a bit shortened as the band had a support group (a different one every night and chosen after listening to tapes). And Also The Trees was one of them. Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst would produce their demos and first recordings a bit later.


DECEMBER

18th
London, Notre Dame Hall
Private Christmas party (invite only) with Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Associates, The Scars, Tarzan 5. Subscribers to the Cure's fan club could attend the event. It seems not all the bands played, being busy partying.


GO TO 1981 PART 1