- The "CURE "at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater
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I went to my first concert ever: the Cure's Dream Tour at Irvine Meadows
Amphitheater, on May 28th, 2000. An eclectic of people, from teens to
forties, from goths to businessmen, conglomerated for a specific purpose: to
experience a Cure's concert. The Cure played over two and a half hours
of solid music, from early materials from the Faith and Pornography albums,
to the second revival period of the Disintegration and Wish albums, with
recent hits from their latest album Bloodflower. Classic Cure's songs--such
as One Hundred Years, The Hanging Garden, Shake Dog Shake, Play for Today, A
Forest, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, Love Song, Fascination Street,
Prayers for Rain, Disintegration, Untitled, Open, From the Edge of the Deep
Green Sea, Trust, to Wish Impossible Things, End, and Want--were played
flawless. At one point of the show, Smith, after finishing Trust, went
to the audience and accepted gifts from lucky fans. They finished with
a long and passionate version of Faith, leaving most of the audience
content--except me, who was very greedy and wanted more. I, who for
the first time attended a Cure's concert, wanted so much to hear Boys
Don’t Cry; but I also understood that the Cure was probably tired of
playing that song. Robert Smith was dressed in his usual attires: black
jeans and black shirt, medium-length hair, with the black semi-acoustic
guitar. Simon Gallup had on black tank top, his hair down to his
shoulders, holding his guitar like a gun, keeping the bass steady and
hypnotic. I believed Perry Bamonte, who made his debut on the Wish
album, was on keyboard. The other two were recent additions to the lineup
since Porl Thompson, one of the best guitarists for the Cure, and Boris
Williams, an awesome drummer, quitted the band. These two additions
were Roger O'Donnell and Jason Cooper. The Cure sounded solid; I was
very impressed how well they played live as if the band members had been
playing together for years.- I discovered the Cure in 1992 with their release of
the Wish album, which I read about in the review section of Rolling Stones
magazine. What interested me was and still is the voice, or character, which
the lyrics embody. Smith, as a lyricist, is a wordsmith, and, as a
singer, a bard of romantic heroes, in the tradition of Keats and Byron.
Themes of departure and death of the loved one, the loss and fragmentation
of the self and the recovering of disintegrated pieces after an apocalyptic
event are meaningful to me. As a Cambodian who lost both parents as a
result of the Revolution of 1975, who experienced cultural shocks and
alienation as an immigrant in America in the early 1980s, who is beginning
to put the pieces of his life together through literature and art as a
college student at California State University, Long Beach, I immediately
identified with the Cure's recurring themes of love, death, and other human
endeavors. Yet, we, who have survived the War or the Great Flood, who have
examined the wasteland that is our lives, we make prayers for the rain to
come, to cleanse us of death and sadness, to grant us rebirth and
resurrection. In the face of a desolated world, we pray for Demeter,
mother of earth and rebirth, Jesus Christ, son of the Christian God who
resurrected after his sacrifice to man, the rain gods and goddesses of the
Americas and Africa. More importantly, we pray to Dionysus, the god of
wine and music, because we know that it is through music and art that we are
able to defeat Death. The Native Americans know this quite well as they sing
and dance so that the rain would fall and make the soil plentiful and
provide life sustenance for the people. It is through watching the
rise and fall of Oedipus, king of Thebes, that we Western audience
experience catharsis, the cleansing of our damned soul. Dear Eliot, in
our absurd hope, we pray that April is no longer the cruelest month.
Dear Gilgamesh, you almost defeat death as you swim to the bottom of the
river to steal the flower of immortality, the symbol of love, its music and
rhythm, the force which enables us to reach immortality through our children
and grandchildren.
- I, Bunkong Tuon, like Gilgamesh before me, like the
dancers of the Ishtar, the rain goddess of Summer, too pray for the rain to
fall and grant me sustenance of which I am in need. I sang along to
Smith's Prayers for Rain and felt an inner transformation, which only art
can do. I now have strength to face another day. I now have the
inspiration and the courage to write. I now believe in the immortality
of the human spirit. I now am.
- Thank you, Aurelio Alba, for making it possible.
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- ----BK, Long Beach, CA, May 29, 2000.
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