FEBRUARY / MARCH

The European 4Tour was launched and was the first proper Cure "tour" there since 2000 : quite structured setlists, magnificent light show with projections, three hours of music per night... An obvious will to deliver great performances while enjoying it all and managing to do so.

Robert Smith probably never looked so happy on stage singing pop songs and concentrating for the more intimate moments (A Boy I Never Knew or At Night for instance). The new track previously known as Don't Say Anything (already played live in 2007) was now called Freak Show. While Please Project was sometimes introduced as The Only One.

The concert in Paris was filmed. That night was also the longest concert of the tour (three and a half hours in a row !). And to make it even more special, they finished with Faith (not played before) in front of 17,000 people holding their breath in silence.


MAY / JUNE

The Only One (Please Project ended up being a working title) was finally released as a single on the 13th of May. Other singles would be released on the 13th of every month, for the three following months. Black and white videos were also made with the help of MTV Italy for the four tracks.

The 4Tour reached America. As hinted here and there, the band would played a few more new songs from the upcoming album : The Perfect Boy, Sleep When I'm Dead, Underneath The Stars, Baby Rag Dog Book (to be known later as It's Over). But A Boy I Never Knew was deliberately put aside and only played once (in Houston).

The second week of the tour in North America saw Robert Smith getting sick (the worst in 30 years of live concerts !) but no shows were cancelled despite the struggle and pain while singing on some nights. Fortunately, that didn't last for too long and then the shows started to get quite different from one another with adding rare songs to the repertoire.

Therefore, the last three weeks of the tour had many highlights : the band celebrating Simon Gallup's birthday with Lol Tolhurst and Michael Dempsey in the audience in Los Angeles, the never played before Faith encore in Charlotte, Forever in NYC etc... This tour was obviously worth the wait for the fans there (having been postponed).

The live repertoire from this part of the tour included 73 songs !
Killing Another (KAA), 10:15 Saturday Night, Fire In Cairo, Boys Don't Cry, Grinding Halt, Three Imaginary Boys, Jumping Someone Else's Train, Play For Today, A Forest, M, At Night, The Holy Hour, Primary, Other Voices, The Drowning Man, Faith, Charlotte Sometimes, Forever, One Hundred Years, The Hanging Garden, The Figurehead, A Strange Day, Let's Go To Bed, The Walk, The Lovecats, Shake Dog Shake, In Between Days, Kyoto Song, The Blood, Push, The Baby Screams, Close To Me, A Night Like This, The Kiss, Catch, Torture, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, Why Can't I Be You?, How Beautiful You Are, Just Like Heaven, Hot Hot Hot, Plainsong, Pictures Of You, Lovesong, Lullaby, Fascination Street, Prayers For Rain, Disintegration, Never Enough, The Big Hand, Open, From The Edge of The Deep Green Sea, Doing The Unstuck, Friday I'm In Love, A Letter To Elise, To Wish Impossible Things, End, Want, Wrong Number, Out Of This World, Maybe Someday, Bloodflowers, Signal To Noise, The End Of The World, Us or Them, alt.end, A Boy I Never Knew, Underneath The Stars, The Only One, Freak Show, The Perfect Boy, Sleep When I'm Dead, Baby Rag Dog Book (It's Over).


OCTOBER

11th
MTV, Coca Cola Live
The Cure played their entire brand new album, 4:13 Dream, for MTV live in Roma. The show was free. They finished off the concert with old pop singles. The soundcheck took place the previous night.

28th
4:13 Dream was finally released. It was originally intended as a double album (since the group was prolific and recorded over 30 songs) but the idea was scrapped. A "dark album" from the same sessions could be out in 2009.

A new dvd project started (with the services of Tim Pope) about a documentary to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Cure's debut (in 2009). Basically interviews of all past members of the band were planned and additional footage could be available at the official site.


DECEMBER

The band headed to America for a few TV appearences and a couple of concerts.

13th
Hollywood, The Troubadour
MySpace secret show in a small club. Free entrance and two and a half hours long. Good show.

14th
Los Angeles, Gibson Amphitheatre
Almost Acoustic X-mas radio show. Unfortunately Robert clearly had voice problems that night. It's probable the show was shortened.

15th
Jimmy Kimmel Live TV
An interesting version of The Hungry Ghost was played on Jimmy Kimmel TV show off the air (but available online). Robert Smith sang the track on a low tone, completely changing the mood of the song (more of a melancolic feel). Robert also met up with Tim Burton that night.



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