FEBRUARY

09th
Jonathan Ross Show TV
First appearance of the year. The band played The Only One live on TV and Robert Smith sang the end of the track differently.

25th
NME Awards, Brixton Academy, London
The Cure were given the "Godlike Genius" award by Tim Burton at the ceremony and played live for half an hour there (a kind of greatest hits set). Robert Smith confessed (joking) he didn't know which made him the most unconfortable : the God or the genius part.

26th
London, O2 Arena (Shockwaves NME Awards Big Gig).
The festival was set up by the NME Awards (also on the bill were Franz Ferdinand, White Lies, Crystal Castle). The band's concert lasted almost two hours and included new tracks not played during the 4Tour in Europe the past year. For the statistics, at least one song from each of the 13 Cure albums appeared in that night's setlist ("a trip through time") and Primary was sung quite differently.


APRIL

17th
Las Vegas, The Palms, Pearl Concert Theater
One-off concert since the band was in America for the Coachella festival. A few technical problems (Porl's guitar) and some mistakes (In Between Days intro, M) slowly led to some pressure on stage. Apparently, Robert hurt his hand while playing The Kiss at the end of the first encore. So the show was a bit shortened after that : Play For Today (more talked over than sung properly) and a short version of A Forest closed the evening.

19th
Indio, Coachella Festival
Almost the same main set as two days before (Wrong Number was played instead of Want). Good mood. The first two encores were identical to the Vegas show but then the band decided to try the "old school" songs as a third encore. Robert warned the audience that they were told they just had time for one song. A statement the group wouldn't comply with, in the great Cure tradition... But the PA system got cut off after two tracks (somebody dared to !). Surprisingly, that still wouldn't stop the band who did Boys Don't Cry & Jumping Someone Else's Train, (the much lower sound coming from their guitar amps/monitors) with the crowd singing along. All the power was finally cut as they were about to follow with Grinding Halt (only Jason's drums could be heard at that point). Funny and odd ending again that made Robert Smith to laugh, you can't always win...

The rest of the year was spent taking care of the Disintegration remaster bonus discs and remixing Entreat for the same release planned for 2010. Robert Smith also recorded a cover version of Very Good Advice (from Disney's Alice in Wonderland) at home for the Almost Alice soundtrack.

Robert would also collaborate with other bands, many of these names were still "secret" at the time. But they would come out the following year for most of them : 65 Days Of Static, Crystal Castle, Anik Jean, Japanese Popstars...


2010

MAY

The Disintegration remaster (a 3-CD pack) was finally out including a new remixed and expanded version of Entreat (live in London '89). A special website (thecuredisintegration.com) dedicated to the release went also online, giving even more bonus tracks (rehearsals, demos and part of a soundboard live recording from Dallas '89).

The rest of the year was pretty much quiet and discreet for the Cure. Speculations started to spread about the band's line up actually (Porl Thompson gone ?). But the end of the year saw an official statement of the band being booked to play live again at Bestival, Isle of Wight (England) in September 2011, their only European appearance for the year apparently. The Isle of Wight certainly brings back old memories to Robert Smith as it was where his older brother took him (aged 10) to see Jimi Hendrix live.


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