The mood was set before the Cure even set foot on stage at London’s Troxy. Entering the venue, expectant fans were met by the sound of rainfall and sudden flashes of thunder, which jolted those who were unprepared. The effects blaring through the speakers projected the darkness that most people associate with the Cure, which appears in spades throughout Songs of a Lost World, the band’s first full-length album in 16 years.
Strolling onto the stage, Robert Smith has scarcely changed since the band first emerged all those decades ago; the trademark makeup remains, while his big hair only shows age through its frazzled, wire-like appearance. For the first section of the show, in celebration of its release day, the Cure played their new album in full.
A record concerned with mortality and grief, Songs of a Lost World features some of the band’s most polished and atmospheric work. Opener “Alone” set an immediately apocalyptic visage, while “A Fragile Thing” had Smith bellowing a tale of tragic heartache, of which he is a convincing performer.
Among songs that are in no rush to get to the point, gleefully stewing in their own ambiance, “Drone:Nodrone” injected a sense of urgency. The guitars shrieked with an ear-piercing chaos compared to the recording, as the wah wah effect wailed around the walls of the Troxy. Performing Songs of a Lost World in full exemplified what has made the Cure almost peerless over their long career, their unique blend of bleakness and melancholy embedded with a sense of genuine beauty.
This was evident during “And Nothing Is Forever,” which stirred to life before a monument backlit by a green skyline. All of a sudden, the venue became a place of awe. It was hard not to be taken aback by the finality of Smith singing, “As you hold me for the last time / In the dying of the life.” But that death was surrounded by so much shimmering beauty emanating from Roger O’Donnell’s warm synth that you couldn’t help but get the sense of a life well lived.
Songs of a Lost World was inspired by some close personal loss that Smith experienced in recent years, and the way it approaches death feels similar to David Bowie’s Blackstar. The full live performance felt like the product of a band fully aware of themselves getting older, leaning slowly toward the inevitable end. It made for an incredibly moving experience.
After a short intermission following “Endsong,” the Cure returned to dive headfirst into fan favorites and classics. Within all this, Smith’s stage presence was polite and unassuming, thanking the audience every so often before getting straight back on with it. There were some moments of animation — “Lullaby” provoked him into a possessed pose, arms stretched out wide and eyes rolling back into his head. The second section was a whirlpool of feelings before a section specifically dedicated to 1980’s Seventeen Seconds.
This was a masterstroke of setlist building, as they slowly built up the eeriness, with “M” bringing an air of menace before “Play for Today” pulled the crowd into a ritualistic atmosphere, a cacophony of voices echoing the skittish melody. All of this felt like a summoning ceremony for “A Forest,” the song that launched a thousand shoegaze bands. The Troxy had turned nocturnal, and suddenly we were stumbling around the vast forestry projected behind the band, with only the iconic bass lines of Simon Gallup there to guide us through.
The encore was fully committed to joyous rapture. For a band associated with gothic rock, the Cure have a lot of truly euphoric songs. The vibrant electricity of “The Walk” wouldn’t feel out of place in any club, and it was followed by the band’s biggest commercial hits in “Friday I’m in Love” and the night’s closer “Boys Don’t Cry.” The band were determined to go out on a high, with the final run of songs getting everyone up off their feet.
The Cure exemplified how their discography embodies crushing lows and soaring, pop-adjacent highs. Even in Smith’s darkest moments of confrontation and loss, there’s beauty to be found — even after all these years, there’s still more shadow to explore.
