AUGUST

05th
Benicassim Festival
First proper show and a real test for the new Cure. Robert Smith only played on the same guitar model (the "UltraCure" that he designed for Schecter), all his guitars being tuned differently and customized with stickers. Porl Thompson litteraly changed guitars on every song as well. The first half of the show was a bit awkward as the singing wasn't the greatest. Robert blamed it on smoking again. Fortunately, the rest of the concert was very good once all the apprehension went away.

10th
Lokeren, Lokerse Festival
High was only played at this show. The End Of The World was sung on a lower tone this year, making the song a little different. For the second encore, Robert Smith announced "Just imagine the tape" for the keyboards parts of the songs !

13th
St Malo, Route du Rock Festival
The band tried a guitar driven version of Plainsong to open the concert ! Quite a challenge since the track was pretty much keyboards oriented. Primary was an exclusive for this concert. The song included an improvised verse.

18th
Avenches, Rock Oz Arènes
The worst was avoided as Robert Smith struggled to sing for half of the show but fully recovered his voice at some point. He kind of lost it on From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea ! Lullaby included wah wah effects (while playing the synth parts on guitar). Weird.

20th
Taormina, Teatro Antico
A beautiful setting in Sicily. Very long concert, the songs after Faith weren't supposed to happen. Robert Smith changed the lyrics of Killing An Arab to "Loving An Arab" and then "Kissing An Arab". The group wouldn't play the song for the past five years because of all the misunderstanding behind it and certainly because of the war in Iraq.

26th
Szeged, Youth Days Festival
The Drowning Man was only played at this show. Robert Smith adapted the lyrics of Killing An Arab to "Kissing An Arab" again. Worth noting was the soundcheck that took place in the afternoon where Robert tried to remember Catch, It's Not You and Jumping Someone Else's Train. At the end, when leaving he announced with humour to the few people there that the "real Cure would be arriving in a couple of hours time".

28th
Berlin, Wuhlheide
Robert forgot Open lyrics, so tonight's version was a little approximative. Good concert anyway. They originally planned to end with "Kissing an Arab" but as the band had time left, they came back to play Faith.


SEPTEMBER

01st
Athens, Terravibe Festival
Lovesong was an exclusive to this show. Robert also joked before Hot Hot Hot (a premiere also) pretending the following was a new song that got written in the afternoon. No doubt the local temperature inspired that, he also confessed being a little drunk !

03rd
Istanbul, Rock'n'Coke Festival
Long concert and the first time the group played in Turkey. Robert confessed : "Yesterday night I learned a lot of Turkish words. Today I couldn't remember a fucking... But better to remember English actually."