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The Cure triumphs at Merriweather

Marathon three-hour set packs hits, deep cuts

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the Cure, gay news, Washington Blade

Robert Smith of the Cure. (Photo by Bill Ebbesen; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Last Wednesday, June 22, British alternative-rock titans the Cure brought its first extensive tour of America in nearly a decade to Merriweather Post Pavilion. A sea of people packed the venue on a beautiful summer night to see one of the most enduring and influential bands of the last 40 years.

It was clear from the beginning that the Cure has lost none of its considerable power, as members started the show with the fiery rocker “Open” from their 1992 album “Wish.”

Robert Smith looked and sounded much like he always has. He walked out on stage in his usual disheveled black frock, dark spiderweb hair and mussed red lipstick. Smith is now 57, but his distinct swampwater voice is as powerful as ever. Over the course of 32 songs, he switched back and forth between acoustic and electric guitar, keeping the between-song banter to a minimum (and most of the time his thickly accented mumbles were inaudible anyway). Bassist Simon Gallup, who has been alongside Smith since almost the beginning, stalked around the stage with restlessly intensity, while guitarist Reeves Gabrels, keyboardist Roger O’Donnell and drummer Jason Cooper formed a tightly wound and explosive musical unit. One might argue that Simon Gallup’s bass was too high in the mix and Roger O’Donnell’s keyboard was a bit too low, but that would be a minor quibble. By and large the Cure sounded fantastic.

The band effortlessly switched from brooding rockers to somber emotional pieces to ebullient pop, the schizophrenic combination for which the Cure is so famous. The crowd was incredibly enthusiastic as the band traipsed through its enormous catalog, pulling out big hits, deep album cuts and a few obscurities for the die-hards. “Pictures of You” was an early highlight, with the spine-tingling swirls of keyboard and guitar backing Smith’s bittersweet memories of a love he let slip through his fingers. Big hits like “Just Like Heaven,” “The Walk,” “In Between Days” and “Lovesong” had the large and surprisingly diverse crowd singing along to every word. The rarely played “Bananafishbones” was a treat, as was “All I Want,” a hard-edged deep cut the band dusted off from 1987’s “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me.” The behemoth of the main set was the seven-minute epic “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea,” which featured blistering guitar work by Gabrels.

The band played four encores, beginning with the throbbing bass-heavy “Sinking” from 1986’s “The Head on the Door.” An incendiary take on “Shake Dog Shake” was followed by the 1994 soundtrack hit “Burn” from “The Crow,” and then their old warhorse “A Forest,” a classic from 1980’s “Seventeen Seconds.” As the night wound toward its conclusion, the band amped the crowd to a fever pitch as they rampaged through a series of hits including “Lullaby,” “Wrong Number,” “Fascination Street,” “Let’s Go to Bed” and “Close to Me.”

By the time of “Why Can’t I Be You?,” a clearly winded Robert Smith gamely tried to hit the song’s very high notes without much success, but it hardly mattered — the crowd did a wonderful job filling in for him, singing every word with blissful euphoria. The show closed with “Boys Don’t Cry,” a 1979 single that was never a hit on either side of the Atlantic but somehow 37 years later a packed amphitheater in suburban D.C. sang a long to every word as if it was a worldwide chart-topper.

At the end of the epic three-hour show Merriweather was still full. After the band waved their goodbyes to thunderous applause, Robert Smith stood alone in the spotlight on the stage, basking in the crowd’s love and appreciation. He paused momentarily in front of each section as the entire place stood and cheered, arms in the air clapping wildly. It was an amazing moment. Smith seemed like he didn’t want to leave the stage, he was so obviously touched and moved. Eventually he shambled off, looking over his shoulder one last time at the still-standing, still enthusiastically cheering crowd, and it was finally over just as the clock was hitting 11 p.m.

1.  Open [“Wish” – 1992]
2.  High [“Wish” – 1992]
3.  Pictures of You [“Disintegration” – 1989]
4. Closedown [“Disintegration” – 1989]
5. Kyoto Song [“The Head on the Door” – 1985]
6. A Night Like This [“The Head on the Door” – 1985]
7. The Walk [non-album single – 1983]
8. The End of the World [“The Cure” – 2004]
9. Lovesong [“Disintegration” – 1989]
10. If Only Tonight We Could Sleep [“Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” – 1987]
11. All I Want [“Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” – 1987]
12. Push [“The Head on the Door” – 1985]
13. In Between Days [“The Head on the Door” – 1985]
14. Just Like Heaven [“Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” – 1987]
15. Bananafishbones [“The Top” – 1984]
16. Never Enough [“Mixed Up” – 1990]
17. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea [“Wish” – 1992]
18. End [“Wish” – 1992]

Encore 1

19. Sinking [“The Head on the Door” – 1985]
20. It Could Never Be The Same [new unreleased track]

Encore 2

21. Shake Dog Shake [“The Top” – 1984]
22. Burn [“The Crow” Soundtrack – 1994]
23. A Forest [“Seventeen Seconds” – 1980]

Encore 3

24. Dressing Up [“The Top” – 1984]
25. Lullaby [“Disintegration” – 1989]
26. Fascination Street [“Disintegration” – 1989]
27. Wrong Number [new single for “Galore” hits collection – 1997]

Encore 4

28. Hot Hot Hot!!! [“Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” – 1987]
29. Let’s Go to Bed [non-album single – 1982]
30. Close to Me [“The Head on the Door” – 1985]
31. Why Can’t I Be You? [“Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” – 1987]
32. Boys Don’t Cry [non-album single – 1979]

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Music & Concerts

Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule

Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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Writer Gregg Shapiro with Jill Sobule in 2000. (Photo courtesy Shapiro)

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.

Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).

Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.

With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.

Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”

That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.

While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.

Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.

On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.

Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.

When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.

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Music & Concerts

Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’

Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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Singer Tom Goss is back. (Photo by Dusti Cunningham)

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co. 

Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.

For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

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Music & Concerts

Kylie brings ‘Tension’ tour to D.C.

Performance on Tuesday at Capital One Arena

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Kylie Minogue visits D.C. on Tuesday.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.

The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”

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