JANUARY

09th
New York, Madison Square Garden
David Bowie's 50th birthday celebrations with "friends" : Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, Billy Corgan, Dave Grohl... Robert Smith was invited too and had Perry as a trip companion. Robert got on stage to perform Quicksand and the Last Thing You Should Do with one of his idols, so obviously he got pretty nervous. Tim Pope filmed the event. Robert also met Mark Plati (Bowie's producer) and Reeves Gabrels (Bowie's guitarist) and made plans to record something together.


APRIL

21st
Robert's birthday and the Cure's official website was upgraded and relaunched. A section offered a live webcam sometimes while the group would chat online or while being in a recording studio. The site adress was also changed to thecure.com.


JUNE

06/09th
The group had four days of rehearsals as they agreed to headline two american radio festivals. A welcomed commitment after six months of being at home. They just had to make sure, they didn't forget how to play the songs !

13th
Mountain View, Shoreline Amphitheatre, BDF Live 105 Festival
The bill also included Echo & The Bunnymen, Blur, Erasure.The set list was close to a typical Swing Tour one, just much shorter (75 minutes).

14th
Irvine, World Famous Weenie Roast Festival
Same set list as the previous night except Why Can't I Be You ? was dropped. Quite a difficult night for the group : technical problems, delayed schedule (they went on around 12:30am while still being jet-lagged). The show was broadcast on the radio and online.

Around the same time, the Cure released a limited edition EP called Five Swing Live through their website. Limited to 5000 copies, the numbered cds included five songs recorded live in the UK in December 1996.


JULY

15th
Parkgate Studios, Battle, East Sussex, England
Three weeks recording five new songs with Mark Saunders as co-producer. A track was called Ching Chang Chong and was an early version of Split Milk (to be released in 2000). Another one was tentatively called Lime Green and would evolve into Wrong Number just after.


AUGUST

15th/17th
Whitfield Street Studios, London
Robert, on his own this time, worked with Mark Plati (sound-engineering) on Wrong Number. Reeves Gabrels was able to come and added guitar parts on the tracks, changing the feel of the song (originally a "slow groove"). The original recording would serve for the numerous remixes that were made for Wrong Number.


SEPTEMBER

11th/12th
Wrong Number video filming with Tim Pope ("together again at last"). The weird and colourful video was shot at Castle Studios in London and included real snakes (including a 12-foot python !).


OCTOBER

25/26th
Hollywood, SIR Studios
Rehearsals for the upcoming american promo shows for Galore, the new singles compilation. Some of the songs were rehearsed in their 7" remix versions (Fascination Street, Pictures Of You), the most interesting being the 1990's Closest Mix of Close To Me !

27th
Galore and the Wrong Number single were released. The band gave an in-store record signing at Virgin in Hollywood for the occasion but it was so crowded, it almost turned into a riot outside the store. It even made the news on TV with helicopters filming.

28th
Hollywood, Legion Hall
Quite a party atmosphere for this first promo show hence a quite drunk Robert Smith. Mint Car's guitar solo was messed up and he blamed it on Roger ("sending me bad vibes"). Reeves Gabrels and Wayne Hussey were invited to perform a couple of songs on stage with the group.

31st
New York City, Irving Plaza
Halloween night. Part of the show was broadcast live on the radio. Robert played Jumping Someone Else's Train on his own during the commercial break on the radio station, an interlude so the people listening wouldn't miss a song. A good version of Forever ended the main set, quite a surprise for part of the band as the song wasn't on the set list.


NOVEMBER

05th
The Cure hijacked XFM radio for five hours, dj'ing and playing a special acoustic session : Lovesong, Just Like Heaven, Friday I'm In Love and Catch.

20th/25th
New rehearsals as the group agreed to play in America again (third time of the year !), doing the "Christmas radio shows" tour this time. They worked on some of the rare tracks of the catalogue and tried new things like a drum machine on One Hundred Years with Jason drumming on top of it or different 6-string bass notes on Untitled -actually they're also on the studio version of the song, but mixed very low...


DECEMBER

The band arrived back from America on 14th and prepared for the London shows (the only European dates of the year, they wanted to play in Paris as well but no venue was available there).

16th/17th
London, Shepherds Bush Empire
Robert Smith was sick on the first night, but that didn't prevent the band to give a great performance after some frustrating moments in America. Part of the concert was broadcast live on the radio. On the following day, Cure fans brought a "Top 20 guitar" shaped cake to give to Robert for his 21st anniversary of being on stage. The most memorable show of the year according to the Cure's singer. They also tried End that night, a song they didn't play before.



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