SEPTEMBER

02nd
Monterrey, Arena
The band arrived to Mexico for the first time in 12 years. And the response in the country was overwhelming. Excellent performance.

04th/05th/06th
Mexico, Palacio de los Deportes
Three sold out dates in the Mexican capital (the 60 000 tickets were sold in just a few days). The group simply played all the live repertoire of that year and also tried a couple of songs not played before : Fire In Cairo, Primary. The last night was filmed and broadcast on TV. Probably the noisiest audience the group experienced in years.

Around the same time, a French animated show for children called "Les Chasseurs de Dragons" asked Robert Smith for a theme. The result was called The Dragon Hunters (a version of Taking Off with a different mix and with different lyrics).

17th
London, Old Billingsgate, MTV taping
A special Cure day on the TV channel had several shows dedicated to the group : an invite only concert, fans stories and the famous MTV Icon ceremony hosted by Marilyn Manson. The band attended the ceremony show and a few other groups covered Cure songs live, the most interesting by far being the Deftones (If Only Tonight We Could Sleep).

29th
The Cure recorded a Music Response session (for XFM radio) : Three Imaginary Boys, Us or Them, alt.end, Taking Off and 10:15 Saturday Night -which included a very strange beginning ! Untuned guitare ? Robert Smith was also interviewed on the program.


OCTOBER

05th
BBC Radio 1, Zane Lowe show
Another radio session was recorded : The End Of The World, Taking Off and Boys Don't Cry.

During the month, Robert decided not to go on tour in Europe (the band only played festivals there so the idea was in the air to have a proper tour), confessing feeling "cranky" and needing a break.

12th
alt.end was released as a single in North America while Taking Off was released everywhere else. Both singles offered the same b sides. The videos were made for both songs at the end of August while being on tour in America. And an intense promotional era was launched.

14th
Paris, Zénith (Canal + "20th anniversary concert")
The French TV channel celebrated its 20th anniversary in a large venue and the Cure was invited. They did two songs live : Taking Off and If Only Tonight We Could Sleep (joined by Placebo on stage, Brian Molko sang on the track too).

The same day, part of the band recorded an acoustic session for OuïFm (French radio) at their hotel. They played The End of the World, Boys Don't Cry, Taking Off.

15th
Paris, Maison de la Radio (Black Session)
A special 90 minutes live session for France Inter radio. Invite only (200 people). A funny mistake happened on The End Of The World (that the group had to start three times) : wrong guitar -not tuned as the usual and then forgetting how it went.

30th
BBC Radio 2, Dermot O'Leary Session
Another session for English radio : The Faith Healer, Never, Fascination Street, Going Nowhere (as the show's jingle -with adapted lyrics, a "DJ's dream" according to the host).


NOVEMBER

05th
London, Wembley Arena
Robert Smith joined Placebo on stage during their concert to sing on Without You I'm Nothing and Boys Don't Cry. He would do the same for Blink 182 playing the same venue on December 06th (and singing on All Of This and Boys Don't Cry).

The rest of the month was dedicated to play a couple of half and hour shows (for the MTV Awards in Roma and for a French radio show) and to promote Taking Off on TV in Germany.

29th
The first remastered Cure album, Three Imaginary Boys, was released in a deluxe edition (including a bonus disc of unreleased material). The release included a 16-page booklet with unseen photos from that time.



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