AUGUST

13th
Wellington, Town Hall
First show in this part of the world since 1984. The group came - by plane - thanks to a 38 000-signature petition from fans. The repertoire was the same as in America but for some reason (financial ?), the stage decorations (based on the Wish album artwork) didn't make the trip. The lightshow was a bit different as well but nothing drastically different, although the slides weren't projected too.

15th
Auckland, Super Top
Sound problems. Towards the end of A Night Like This, the level dramatically dropped, causing a wait of several minutes for the next song. A Forest's extra lyrics refered to "Wonder if you will give the way I gave".

18th
Sydney, Entertainment Center
The inspiration coming, Robert Smith got to a studio in the afternoon to sing on an unreleased and instrumental demo the band recorded at the Manor Studios on the previous year. The result was A Foolish Arrangement. This excellent song would be used as a B- side on the forthcoming A Letter To Elise single.

The evening show included Hot Hot Hot !!! which was played for the first time in 1992. Girl From Ipanema guitar chords were used as an interlude before Boys Don't Cry. Contrary to the previous night, the audience wasn't particulary loud, maybe more respectful but that gave pretty bad reviews in the local music papers.

On the last of the three nights in Sydney, Simon collapsed on the floor during Boys Don't Cry. What people thought being tiredness would prove being more serious than that later.

24th
Melbourne, Flinders Park
The only sold out show in Australia. The Figurehead lyrics were changed to "I can lose myself in Australian girls". At the end, Robert congratulated the audience : "You have been, by about a hundred times, the best australian audience we've got." The second night in Melbourne saw the group trying Faith (that they had the "time to play"), including a few extra lines with the repetitive "You'll never be the same".

This short tour ended in Perth and everybody got back in England to recover. The Cure was supposed to appear in the Oxfam festival taking place in Wales on September 05th, but the event got cancelled.


SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER

The Cure embarked on a 46-date European tour, feeling less enthousiastic than five months earlier for various reasons... Dark songs like At Night or One Hundred Years were exclusively and regulary played in Europe and even more tracks were added to the repertoire there : Play For Today, Dressing Up, Catch, The Big Hand.

A Letter To Elise was released as a single while on tour. A "terrible choice" according to Robert Smith (who prefered Doing The Unstuck). The video was filmed while soundchecking in Auburn Hills, USA, three months earlier.

At the end of the Italian dates, Simon Gallup, suffering from pleurisy, had to be hospitalized. His drinking partner and friend of the group, Roberto Soave - Shelleyan Orphans' bassist -, replaced him for three weeks on stage for the tour to continue. A perfect choice as Roberto didn't need too much time to learn and rehearse the songs.


NOVEMBER

Roberto's debut on bass with the Cure : three weeks of touring in France, Spain and the UK. During an interview in Madrid, Robert Smith introduced Roberto as the "ultimate Scottish goth".

Then, The Kiss and Foxy Lady (by Jimmy Hendrix) were added to the band's setlist. Worth mentioning was the fact that Robert and Porl joined the Cranes on stage in Liévin as their singer was ill. Then Simon came back for the last shows and his return immediately lifted everybody's spirits up. The concerts in London were probably the best ones, along with the Parisian ones, including 49 different songs over the course of four nights (all the repertoire basically except A Strange Day and It's Not You/Lovecats extracts).

The Wish tour ended in Dublin (on December 3rd) where, this time, the Cranes joined the band on stage on Forever. Dublin was also the last concert of Porl Thompson who had decided to leave the group before the tour even started.


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