Like coming home: The Cure play a grandiose concert in the Olympiahalle for more than two and a half hours
Created: 2022-10-30Updated: 2022-10-30, 4:06 p.m
By: Armin Roesl
Singer and guitarist Robert Smith on Saturday evening in the Olympiahalle.
© Martin Hangen
What an evening in Munich's Olympiahalle!
The Cure play a terrific concert across their work, present new songs and give you the feeling of coming home.
Munich – Twenty-eight and a half songs, one hundred and fifty-eight minutes: The Cure played a big, bigger, great concert in the sold-out Olympiahalle on Saturday night.
The Brits are currently on their "Lost World Tour" through Europe, what they are performing is nothing for those who only know a handful of songs from the grandiose complete work that are repeatedly noodled on the radio.
The Cure play many of their melancholic, sometimes epic songs (like "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" and "A Forest") from all decades in Munich.
With the longer instrumental sequences like “A Forest”, that feeling comes back immediately, which came back when you first heard it in 1980, when The Cure released the song: You don’t want to leave the forest anymore (“A Forest ").
You never want to get out of this music again.
It lets you float, float endlessly.
View of the first row of the sold-out Olympic Hall.
© hangenfoto/Martin Hangen
The Cure concert is probably like coming home for almost all fans in the sold-out Olympiahalle (roughly estimated, at least 80 percent of the visitors grew up with The Cure).
The familiar, warm voice of Robert Smith, who is The Cure after all, just feels good.
You can't tell from his voice that the founder, singer and guitarist is already 63 years old.
His hair is backcombed as usual anyway, and before the first song he starts pacing slowly from side to side on the edge of the stage like a shy boy not sure if he should show his new toy, then that's it simply: dear.
Companions over the decades: Robert Smith (left) and Simon Gallup.
© Martin Hangen
And fortunately Robert Smith actually presents something new: "And Nothing Is Forever" for example, from the announced new album.
Verdict: One of the best Cure songs in 20 years, at least.
And for the first time on the tour, the band will play “Doing the Unstuck” in Munich.
That's also so terrific: Robert Smith doesn't rest and wraps up a run-of-the-mill 1980s revival show with the same set list, but plays with a lot of heart and soul: The Cure.
Pure.
The new songs released so far and played on the tour sound like - The Cure: uniquely beautiful.
It's easy to accept with a smile that bassist Simon Gallup (Robert Smith's longest companion) doesn't want to die of aging and at the age of 62 in leggings and the bass guitar at half mast he's humped back and forth on his right knee like Quasimodo.
gift.
It was a terrific evening.
With actually half a song: the whole hall sang “Happy Birthday” to keyboardist Roger O'Donnell, who celebrated his 67th birthday on Saturday, at the start of the second encore block.
This was followed by songs like "Lullaby", "Friday I'm in Love", "Close to Me", "Just Like Heaven" and "Boys Don't Cry", probably the most brilliant and thus the mother of all encores.
Robert Smith only tops this with his announcement that we will see each other again soon.
It's 11:28 p.m. - and fortunately it's the eve of the changeover to winter time, so that this grandiose concert can be felt and reverberated for an hour longer.