In the end, Robert Smith didn’t really seem like he was ready to leave the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, where he and the Cure wrapped up nearly three hours on stage Tuesday with a soaring run through “Boys Don’t Cry.”
He walked to stage right and bowed slightly to the fans, and then did the same on the left. He walked into the wings, but the cheers and applause brought him back for a moment, hesitating still.
This isn’t unusual for Smith and the Cure, of course. At Coachella one year, the Cure famously blasted past the festival curfew, ignoring orders to stop until the festival organizers cut power to the stage and turned the field lights on. Smith and the band played on, fans pushing forward to hear and help them sing another three unplugged songs including “Boys Don’t Cry.”
So yeah, there’s a bond here between Smith, who co-founded the Cure in 1978, and the fans who’ve adored the emotionally deep, soaring and beautiful songs he’s written ever since. (That he spoke out against Ticketmaster and scalpers over their practices, and fought to keep tickets affordable for the tour only endeared him more.)
Touring behind – actually, in front – of “Songs of a Lost World,” an album that still has no release date? No problem. The six new songs in the set got almost the response that much better-known tunes received.
Stay ’til the end? Of course, they did.
Gray skies and low clouds over the Bowl on Tuesday matched the rumble of thunder and clatter of rain piped over the PA as fans waited for the Cure to arrive almost seven years to the day since its last three-night run at the historic venue.
“Alone,” one of six not-yet-released new songs in the show, opened the night with a typical-for-the-Cure long instrumental intro before Smith, handed a bouquet of roses by a fan as he arrived on stage, started to sing.
“Hello, again,” he said at its close. “We came back!” a fan deep in the Bowl shouted back to him.
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