Gig review: The Cure at First Direct Arena, Leeds

It was back in 1985 that the band headlined Queens Hall, then the city’s premier music venue, while touring their album The Head on The Door, the record that would set them on the path to worldwide success.

Queens Hall might have bitten the dust since then, along with several of the group’s then line-up, but in the intervening decades The Cure’s popularity has ballooned, ensuring a capacity crowd is there to greet them at the 13,000-seat First Direct Arena.

Musically not an awful lot has changed since the mid-80s, with a generous two-and-a-half hour set allowing plenty of time to excavate some of the glummer material from their extensive catalogue – At Night is particularly icy, A Night Like This none more forlorn – but it’s delivered with some knowing humour at times. After the desolate strains of Cold subside, Smith drily observes: “It’s a Friday night disco – well, it is round my house.”

Regular live stand-bys Pictures of You, Lovesong, Burn and Push are all included but the prettiest songs, with lots of Cocteau Twins-like guitar filigrees, are undoubtedly four new ones – Alone, And Nothing is Forever, A Fragile Thing and I Can Never say Goodbye – the last of which quotes Shakespeare’s line “something wicked this way comes”. Smith dedicates it to his late brother, Richard, adding: “I can guarantee you will like this.” He’s not wrong, and they augur well for their long-delayed 14th studio album, Songs of a Lost World.

The set hits its peak during a five-song sequence that starts with Shake Dog Shake and ends with A Forest, providing bassist Simon Gallup and guitarist Reeves Gabrels with plenty of opportunities for posturing with their instruments amid the swirls of dry ice.

In the first encore The Cure mine one of their darkest albums, Disintegration, for Plainsong and the title track; in the second, the mood shifts to celebratory, with a victory lap of pop hits that include Friday I’m In Love, Close To Me, In Between Days and Just Like Heaven. The pick of them, though, is a propulsive rendition of The Walk.

As they bid farewell with Boys Don’t Cry, long-time fans will undoubtedly be hoping The Cure don’t leave it quite so long before they set foot in Leeds again.