the cure faith tour 1981

The Cure concerts in 1981 119 + 2 concerts

the cure faith tour 1981

Progrography

[Review] The Cure: Faith (1981)

Faith album cover

The second in the band’s dark trilogy, including songs inspired by the death of Ian Curtis.

Kronomyth 3.0: Greys period.

Faith is the second in the band’s dark trilogy begun with Seventeen Seconds and ended with Pornography . In many ways, Faith is the most beautiful of their early records, rich in sonic detail, infused with delicate sympathy. It’s the enigma of Robert Smith as an artist that he could make such a lovely record out of lost faith, isolation and death (the dominant themes of Faith ). The Funeral Song , one of two tracks that appear to be about the recent death of Ian Curtis ( Faith would be the other), and All Cats Are Grey , for example, could almost pass for Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark . (Maybe OMD were darker than I gave them credit for?)

“Faith was the sound of extreme desolation because that’s how we felt at the time.” – Robert Smith, in a 2011 interview .

From the opening of The Holy Hour , the music is gauzier and the production more sophisticated, at times almost hypnotic ( Other Voices ). The songs themselves are presented as dream-like vignettes that rise from a mist, take hold of a moment in time through vivid (sometimes too vivid, in the case of Doubt ) imagery and then dissolve into the dim reality of a church bell (“The Holy Hour”) or some quiet musical coda (“All Cats Are Grey”). While Smith may not have felt that The Cure were strictly a goth band, Faith is the quintessential goth record. It elevates misery into an art form, it savors sadness as absinthe, it revels in its rejection by the world.

I would tell you it’s the best thing they’ve done so far, but each new Cure album seemed to set the standard higher, and I do prefer Pornography as the perfect expression of their lurid nightmare vision. Note that the original cassette versions of Faith included the soundtrack to Ric Gallup’s short film, Carnage Visors , which The Cure used on occasion to open their shows (and an appreciation of which requires faith indeed).

Read more Cure reviews

Original LP Version

A1. The Holy Hour A2. Primary A3. Other Voices A4. All Cats Are Grey B1. The Funeral Party B2. Doubt B3. The Drowning Man B4. Faith

All songs written by Robert Smith, Laurence Tolhurst, Simon Gallup.

Cassette bonus track & LP reissue bonus track 9. Carnage Visors

2CD reissue bonus tracks B1. Faith (demo) B2. Doubt (demo) B3. Drowning (demo) B4. The Holy Hour (demo) B5. Primary (studio outtake) B6. Going Home Time (studio outtake) B7. The Violin Song (studio outtake) B8. A Normal Story (studio outtake) B9. All Cats Are Grey (live) B10. The Funeral Party (live) B11. Other Voices (live) B12. The Drowning Man (live) B13. Faith (live) B14. Forever (live) B15. Charlotte Sometimes

2LP reissue bonus tracks C1. Carnage Visors/The Soundtrack D1. Charlotte Sometimes D2. Going Home Time D3. The Violin Song D4. A Normal Story D5. Forever

The Players

Simon Gallup (bass), Robert Smith (guitar, keyboards, voice), Laurence Tolhurst (drums). Produced by Mike Hedges and The Cure; engineered by Mike Hedges, Graham Carmichael, David Kemp.

The Pictures

All artwork by Porl and Undy. (The cover photograph features the Bolton Priory shot in fog.)

The Plastic

Released on elpee and expanded cassette on April 11, 1981 in the UK (Fiction, fix6/fixc 006), Argentina (Polydor, 2383 605), Australia (7 Records, MLF 443), the Netherlands (Fiction, 2383 605) and Spain (Fiction, 23 83 605) with gatefold cover or innersleeve in some regions; reached #14 on the UK charts. Cassette version packaged as 2-for-1 with “Carnage Visors.”

  • Re-issued on compact disc in France and Germany (Fiction, 827 687-2).
  • Re-issued on compact disc in 1990 in Japan (Polydor, POCP-1874).
  • Re-released as Deluxe Edition on expanded 2CD on May 2, 2005 in the US (Rhino, R2 74683) with 1 bonus track (disc one) and bonus disc.
  • Re-issued on compact disc in 2006 in the US (Rhino, R2 73350) and Russia (Universal Music Russia, 2600758).
  • Re-released on super high material compact disc in 2008 in Japan (Fiction, UICY-93479).
  • Re-released on expanded 180g vinyl 2LP in 2008 in Russia (Vinyl Lovers, 900228) with 6 bonus tracks.
  • Re-issued on 180g vinyl elpee in 2016 in the US (Rhino, R1 60783).
  • Re-issued on expanded 180g vinyl elpee on September 6, 2016 in the US (Elektra) with 1 bonus track.

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Header2018

Amy Winehouse – Back To Black

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Nov 09 2016

The Cure: 35 years of Faith

  • By A Pop Life (Erwin Barendregt) in Review

The Cure original logo (wikimedia.org)

The Cure original logo

the cure faith tour 1981

Placed at number 20 of my album top 50 is this enchanting album by The Cure. I still think this album is stunningly beautiful, atmospheric and emotional. After all these years I still get moved by the tragedy, which is consoling at the same time.

Because of the coming concert by The Cure in Amsterdam on November 13th, 2016 and the fact Faith turned 35 years old earlier this year, this tribute to the third Cure album.

Seventeen Seconds

The Cure - A Forest (ultratop.be)

The Cure – A Forest

The first time I heard of/about The Cure was through the song A Forest . The single off of album Seventeen Seconds , the second The Cure album, an English band led by Robert Smith. The minimalist, futuristic, electronic music, combined with the unique voice of Robert Smith, fascinated me endlessly. I thought Seventeen Seconds was a worldclass record; a real revelation. In those days I also discovered The Clash (on which more at a later time). For the first time I discovered music I didn’t know (in)directly from the charts (as was the case with the ska artists at the time) and on top of that it was music my father didn’t know (Talking Heads, Japan, etc.): exciting!

When I heard that The Cure was about to release a new album, I knew that I had to have it! I got to work in the country (planting or picking flower-bulbs, I can’t remember exactly). I do remember the rain that day: very, very, very heavy rain! I arranged that I could collect my day’s earnings that very same day and raced on my bike, covered in mud, to recordstore North End (still exists!) at my home town of Heerhugowaard. What a sight that must have been: me in my rainwear and boots covered in mud, completely rained out. But, I was on time!. Bought the record and brought it home in a plastic bag. Such wealth!

After coming home, after showering and eating: getting the innersleeve from the cover. Getting the record from the innersleeve. Record on the record-player and off… to another planet. No record in the world can carry me off like Faith .

The Cure - Faith (vinylhoes) (happybirthdayvinyl.co.uk)

The Cure – Faith (innersleeve)

I kneel and wait in silence As one by one the people slip away Into the night

(© 1981 The Cure – The Holy Hour)

The opening bass-melody and lyrics (see above) of The Holy Hour set the tone perfectly. Doom, depression, but beautiful as well.  Primary , the single that preceded the album, comes blasting in: a (relatively) hard song, in which Smith plays the (six-string) bass like a guitar. The result is a beautiful full, dark sound.  Other Voices is another slow cut with a beautiful bass-melody.  All Cats Are Grey closes the initial A side; a beautiful atmospheric song with a great rhythm. Still a goosebumps moment, after 35 years. A breathtaking song.

The Cure 1981 (slicingupeyeballs.com)

The Cure 1981

The title  The Funeral Party says it all. A heavy dark song, but beautiful once again. Just as on side A, the second song on side B is also (relatively) hard and fast:  Doubt . This is followed by The Drowning Man , once again a beautiful moody song. The last song, the album’s title track, is the highlight on the album. After all the beautiful songs before, Faith (the song) is the album’s greatest track (it actually is the greatest song within The Cure’s complete body of work). A stunningly beautiful bass-melody continuing through the whole song. Dark, atmospheric synthesizers, subtle guitars and those dragging drums: addictive, like a mantra. Then Robert Smith enters the song with his opening lines:

Catch me if I fall I’m losing hold I can’t just carry on this way

(© 1981 The Cure – Faith)

Guaranteed emotions. And it just goes on and on.  Faith is a masterpiece by a band performing at the top of their capability. And at their most sombre. The song ends the album with the following lyric on repeat up to the very end.

I went away alone With nothing left But faith

The Cure live 1981 (Greg Allen)

The Cure live 1981

The Cure tent (thecureinholland.nl)

The Cure tent

The Cure Circus tour 1981 ad (thecureinholland.nl)

The Cure Circus tour 1981 ad

The album  Faith had to be promoted. So The Cure wnet on tour. The band came to Holland as well. During the month of June, 1981, The Cure traveled around the country in a circustent. The Dutch leg of the Picture Tour was named the Circus Tour . It generated a lot of publicity for he band (in Holland anyway). During the tour drummer Lol Tolhurst’s mother died. The music’s tragedy became ever more a reality…

I clearly remember reading the ad as seen at the side. I desperately wanted to go, but couldn’t find a way to make it happen. I couldn’t/wasn’t allowed to go alone and sadly missed out on this show. A special moment in the history of The Cure, this tour!.

Rock Werchter

The Cure resumed their regular tour after the Dutch tour (the tent was exclusively used in Holland). another special date was to follow: 07/05/1981. The Cure was part of the line-up of the Rock Werchter festival in Belgium. They were billed right before Robert Palmer. The show went perfectly. In fact, so perfect, that an encore was a definite possibility. However, the organization was less enthusiastic about the idea. Robert Palmer didn’t want his schedule to be altered. Thus, The Cure wasn’t awarded the extra time.

The band decided to prolong A Forest . It probably never lasted as long as on that day. The band kept on resytarting the song: great! At the time The Cure was finally really done, bassist Simon Gallup screamed into the microphone: Fuck Robert Palmer, fuck rock ‘n’ roll!

Because television and radio recordings were made on that day, this fragment is frequently shown/heard through the various internet channels. I own a cd-copy of the bootleg recordings of this (very good) concert.

Position within the legacy

The Cure - Seventeen Seconds (musiconvinyl.com)

The Cure – Seventeen Seconds

The Cure - Pornography (musiconvinyl.com)

The Cure – Pornography

How does Faith fit into The Cure’s entire body of work? The album is widely considered as part 2 of a trilogy of desolate, depressed, dark (sometimes even called suicidal) Cure albums. With the preceding Seventeen Seconds and the following Pornography , Faith is part of the group’s goth phase. A wrong moniker in my opinion: I think The Cure is more postpunk than goth during this period (Siouxsie & The Banshees fits the goth moniker way better). Apart from this labeling: these three albums are most definitely connected through the thematics and atmosphere. It’s gloomy, depressed, and completely unique.

After these albums The Cure would slowly rise from their doom-laden days and grow out to be, particularly from 1985’s The Head On The Door onwards, a huge band. The theme of doom would be part of an album occasionally, especially on Disintegration .

How do you feel about The Cure? What albums are your favorites? Faith ? Or more poppy albums like Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me ? Leave a comment! It is greatly appreciated!

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  • Hamish Whitta on 05/02/2017 at 6:46 AM

I am a great fan of Faith, especially when I was 18/19 years old. Nowadays I gravitate more towards Kiss Me, Kiss Me,Kiss Me, mostly because it offers a wider variety of music. For all that though, my favorite albums would be Head In The Door, or Disintegration.

Faith is consistently strong throughout, Primary has always been the one song that I play most though.

For the definitive live version of the song Faith, might I suggest the version played in Rome, 1989. Dedicated to the victims of Tiananmen square, it is filled with an intensity and anger throughout that I haven’t heard anywhere else in the Cure live oeuvre.

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  • A Pop Life (Erwin Barendregt) on 05/02/2017 at 11:42 AM Author

Thanks for your reply, will definitely check out the live version of Faith. Regarding their greatest album; funny you mentioning Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. There are more who mentioned that album. Based on that, I re-listened the album, but it gasn’t clicked on me yet. It’s a nice album, but nowhere the greatest. For me, The Head On The Door is in the top 3, together with Seventeen Seconds. Disintegration comes at 4 or 5…

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the cure faith tour 1981

  • COMPILATIONS

the cure faith tour 1981

  • DELUXE EDITION (Disc #2)
  • Apple Music

" The whole band had a family member die, and that really colored Faith. The initial demos that we did in my mom and dad’s dining room are really quite upbeat. Then, within about two weeks, the whole mood of the band had completely changed. "

Robert smith, related releases.

the cure faith tour 1981

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the cure faith tour 1981

Faith (Deluxe Edition)

24 SONGS • 2 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES • JUN 07 2005

  • TRACKS TRACKS
  • DETAILS DETAILS

Out of all the bands that emerged in the immediate aftermath of punk rock in the late '70s, few were as enduring and popular as the Cure. Led through numerous incarnations by guitarist/vocalist Robert Smith, the band initially became well-known for its slow, gloomy dirges and Smith's exaggeratedly gothic look, a public image that often hid the diversity of the Cure's music. At the outset, they played jagged, edgy pop songs before slowly evolving into a more textured outfit. They were one of the bands that built the foundations for goth rock, but by the time goth caught on in the mid-'80s, the Cure had moved toward a more polished and thoughtful (if still often depressing) sound. By the end of the '80s, the band had crossed over into the mainstream not only in their native England, but also in the United States and in various parts of Europe. After embracing melody and synth pop on 1985's The Head on the Door, the band hit an artistic high-water mark with their stunningly pained and beautiful 1989 epic Disintegration, and scored their first number one album on the U.K. charts with 1992's Wish. New studio output slowed somewhat as the band soldiered on, but the Cure remained a popular concert draw into the 2000s and beyond, and their influence could be heard clearly on scores of new bands in the new millennium, including many that had little to do with goth.

Originally called the Easy Cure, the band was formed in 1976 by schoolmates Smith (vocals, guitar), Michael Dempsey (bass), and Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst (drums). Initially, the group specialized in dark, nervy guitar pop with pseudo-literary lyrics, as evidenced by the Albert Camus-inspired "Killing an Arab." A demo tape featuring "Killing an Arab" arrived in the hands of Chris Parry, an A&R representative at Polydor Records; by the time he received the tape, the band's name had been truncated to the Cure. Parry was impressed with the song and arranged for its release on the independent label Small Wonder in December 1978. Early in 1979, Parry left Polydor to form his own record label, Fiction, and the Cure was one of the first bands to sign with him. "Killing an Arab" was then re-released in February of 1979, and the Cure embarked on its first tour of England.

The Cure's debut album, Three Imaginary Boys, was released in May 1979 to positive reviews in the British music press. Later that year, the group released the non-LP singles "Boys Don't Cry" and "Jumping Someone Else's Train." That same year, the Cure embarked on a major tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees. During the tour, the Banshees' guitarist, John McKay, left the group and Smith stepped in for the missing musician. For the next decade or so, Smith would frequently collaborate with members of the Banshees.

At the end of 1979, the Cure released a single, "I'm a Cult Hero," under the name the Cult Heroes. Following the release of the single, Dempsey left the band to join the Associates; he was replaced by Simon Gallup at the beginning of 1980. At the same time, the Cure added a keyboardist, Mathieu Hartley, and wrapped up production on the band's second album, Seventeen Seconds, which was issued during the spring of 1980. The addition of a keyboardist expanded the group's sound, was which now more experimental and often embraced slow, gloomy dirges. Nevertheless, the band still wrote pop hooks, as demonstrated by the group's first U.K. hit single, "A Forest," which peaked at number 31. After the release of Seventeen Seconds, the Cure launched its first world tour. Following the Australian leg of the tour, Hartley exited the lineup and his former bandmates chose to continue without him, releasing their third album in 1981 (Faith) and watching it peak at number 14 in the charts. Faith also spawned the minor hit single "Primary." The Cure's fourth album, the doom-laden, introspective Pornography, was released soon after in 1982. Pornography expanded their cult audience even further and cracked the U.K. Top Ten. After the Pornography tour was completed, Gallup quit the band and Tolhurst moved from drums to keyboards. At the end of 1982, the Cure released a new single, the dance-tinged "Let's Go to Bed."

Smith devoted most of the beginning of 1983 to Siouxsie and the Banshees, recording the Hyaena album with the group and appearing as the band's guitarist on the album's accompanying tour. That same year, Smith also formed a band with Banshees bassist Steve Severin; after adopting the name the Glove, the group released its only album, Blue Sunshine. By the late summer of 1983, a new version of the Cure -- featuring Smith, Tolhurst, drummer Andy Anderson, and bassist Phil Thornalley -- had assembled and recorded a new single, a jaunty tune named "The Lovecats." The song was released in the fall of 1983 and became the group's biggest hit to date, peaking at number seven on the U.K. charts. The new lineup of the Cure released The Top in 1984. Despite the pop-leaning number 14 hit "The Caterpillar," The Top was a return to the bleak soundscapes of Pornography. During the world tour supporting The Top, Anderson was fired. In early 1985, following the completion of the tour, Thornalley left the band. The Cure revamped their lineup after his departure, adding drummer Boris Williams and guitarist Porl Thompson; Gallup returned on bass. Later in 1985, the Cure released their sixth effort, The Head on the Door. The album was the most concise and pop-oriented record the group had ever released, which helped send it into the U.K. Top Ten and to number 59 in the U.S., the first time the band had broken the American Hot 100. "In Between Days" and "Close to Me" -- both pulled from The Head on the Door -- became sizable U.K. hits, as well as popular underground and college radio hits in the U.S.

The Cure followed the breakthrough success of The Head on the Door in 1986 with the compilation Standing on a Beach: The Singles. Standing on a Beach reached number four in the U.K., but more importantly, it established the band as a major cult act in the U.S.; the album peaked at number 48 and went gold within a year. In short, Standing on a Beach set the stage for 1987's double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The album was eclectic but it was a hit, spawning four hit singles in the U.K. ("Why Can't I Be You," "Catch," "Just Like Heaven," "Hot Hot Hot!!!") and the group's first American Top 40 hit, "Just Like Heaven." Following the supporting tour for Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the Cure's activity slowed to a halt. Before they began working on their new album in early 1988, the band fired Tolhurst, claiming that relations between him and the rest of the band had been irrevocably damaged. Tolhurst would soon file a lawsuit, claiming that his role in the band was greater than stated in his contract and, consequently, he deserved more money.

In the meantime, the Cure replaced Tolhurst with former Psychedelic Furs keyboardist Roger O'Donnell and recorded their eighth album, Disintegration. Released in the spring of 1989, the album was more melancholy than its predecessor, but it was an immediate hit, reaching number three in the U.K. and number 14 in the U.S., and spawning a series of hit singles. "Lullaby" became the group's biggest British hit in the spring of 1989, peaking at number five. In the late summer, the band had its biggest American hit with "Love Song," which climbed to number two. On the Disintegration tour, the Cure began playing stadiums across the U.S. and the U.K. In the fall of 1990, the Cure released Mixed Up, a collection of remixes featuring a new single, "Never Enough." Following the Disintegration tour, O'Donnell left the band and was replaced by their roadie, Perry Bamonte. In the spring of 1992, they released Wish. Like Disintegration, Wish was an immediate hit, entering the British charts at number one and the American charts at number two, as well as launching the hit singles "High" and "Friday I'm in Love." The Cure embarked on another international tour after its release. One concert, performed in Detroit, was documented on a film called Show and on two albums, Show and Paris. The movie and the albums were released in 1993.

Thompson left the band in 1993 to join Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's band. After his departure, O'Donnell rejoined the lineup as a keyboardist, and Bamonte switched from synthesizer duties to guitar. During most of 1993 and early 1994, the Cure were sidelined by an ongoing lawsuit from Tolhurst, who claimed joint ownership of the band's name and also sought to restructure his royalty payments. A settlement (ruling in the band's favor) eventually arrived during the fall of 1994, and the Cure shifted their focus to the task at hand: recording a follow-up album to Wish. However, drummer Boris Williams quit just as they prepared to begin the recording process. The group recruited a new percussionist through advertisements in the British music papers; by the spring of 1995, Jason Cooper had replaced Williams. Throughout 1995, the Cure recorded their tenth proper studio album, pausing to perform a handful of European musical festivals in the summer. Titled Wild Mood Swings, the album was finally released in the spring of 1996, preceded by the single "The 13th."

A combination of pop tunes and darker moments that lived up to its title, Wild Mood Swings received a mixed reception critically and commercially, slowing but not halting the momentum gained by Wish. Galore, the Cure's second singles collection focusing on the band's hits since Standing on a Beach, appeared in 1997 and featured the new song "Wrong Number." The Cure spent the next few years quietly -- giving a song to the X-Files soundtrack, Robert Smith appearing in a memorable episode of South Park -- re-emerging in 2000 with Bloodflowers, their last album of original material, for Fiction. Designed as the final installment in a heavy goth trilogy that stretched all the way back to Pornography and included Disintegration, Bloodflowers was well-received and a respectable success, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. The next year, the Cure closed out their contract with Fiction with the career-spanning Greatest Hits, which was also accompanied by a DVD release of their most popular videos. During 2002, they spent some time on the road, capping off their tour with a three-night stand in Berlin, where they played each album of their "goth trilogy" on a different night; the event was documented on the home video release Trilogy.

The Cure signed an international deal with Geffen Records in 2003 and then launched an extensive reissue campaign in 2004 with the rarities box set Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities, 1978-2001 (The Fiction Years); double-disc expanded editions of their earliest albums soon followed. Also in 2004, the band released its first album for Geffen, an eponymous effort recorded live in the studio. Heavier but not necessarily harder -- and certainly not gloomier than Bloodflowers -- The Cure was partially designed to appeal to a younger audience familiar with the band through their influence on a new generation of groups, many of which were showcased as opening acts on the Cure's supporting tour for the album. The Cure underwent another lineup change in 2005, as Bamonte and O'Donnell left the group and Porl Thompson came back for his third stint. This new, keyboard-less lineup debuted in 2005 as the headlining act at the benefit concert Live 8 Paris, then headed out on the summer festival circuit, highlights of which were captured on the 2006 DVD release Festival 2005. The Cure popped up on various festivals over the next two years, playing a more extensive European tour in early 2008, as they completed their 13th effort. Originally conceived as a double album, the record was split in half prior to its release, with the lighter, poppier material released first as 4:13 Dream in October 2008. After a three-year break, the group returned to the live circuit with their "Reflections" tour -- kicking off in Australia and seeing the return of original drummer and keyboardist Lol Tolhurst after some 22 years -- where they played their first three albums, Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, and Faith, in their entirety. A career-spanning 150-minute headline slot at 2011's Bestival on the Isle of Wight was recorded and released that same year and the bandy to tour throughout 2012 and 2013, with festival shows in Europe and North America and headline shows in Latin America. In early 2014, Smith announced that they would release the follow-up to 4:13 Dream later in 2014, and would also follow their "Reflections" tour with another series of full-album shows, this time performing The Top, The Head on the Door, and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me in their entirety. Touring and festival appearances would be more of a focus than creating new music in the 2010s, though they intermittently entered the studio to work on new material. More than a decade passed without a new studio album after 2008's 4:13 Dream, but the Cure released multiple live documents and other miscellaneous material, including 2018's Torn Down: Mixed Up Extras 2018, a continuation of their 1990 remix album Mixed Up, 2019's massive multi-media concert set 40 Live (Curætion-25 + Anniversary), and a deluxe 30th Anniversary edition of Wish in 2022 which included a wealth of previously unreleased demos and live material from the time of the album's creation. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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The Cure: Faith (1981)

the cure faith tour 1981

I'm partial to Faith , which includes some of Smith's loveliest, most ambient-ish ballads, most notably "All Cats Are Grey," "The Funeral Party," and "The Drowning Man"--which, titles aside, aren't simply dark so much as deliriously relaxing, the sort of tracks I invariably turn to when insomnia strikes . Not that the album is devoid of more upbeat moments--both "Primary" and "Doubt" move at a quicker clip, though they're still a far cry from the pop songs Smith magically conjures up on later records.

Of course, while the original album serves as an able soundtrack to rainy nights alone at home, it's nothing compared to the extended instrumental track, "Carnage Visors" (originally composed to accompany a now-lost animated short), which is appended to the CD reissue. Sounding like a goth remake of a Brian Eno ambient composition, "Visors" just reeks of despair even without lyrics; listen at your own risk.

Audio rip for "All Cats":

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The Cure 1981

The Cure’s Genre-Defining and Genre-Defying ‘Faith’ 40 Years On

The Cure’s Faith –released 40 years ago this April–comes from a haunted, solipsistic place and it seduces you into its tormented world.

the cure faith tour 1981

One of the most potent post-punk albums in history was released 40 years ago this past April. That album, Faith , by the Cure , not only helped shape the post-punk sound, but it has deeply impacted popular music in both nuanced and obvious ways. At the same time, it’s an album that defies easy pigeonholing, sculpting a singular soundscape, and inhabiting its own claustrophobic universe.

Most saliently, Faith is the album that cemented the Cure as a formative musical force, even as the band’s more commercialized albums, such as Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987) and Disintegration (1989) are better known. Faith was the second in a trilogy that was inaugurated with the celestially solemn Seventeen Seconds (1980) and culminated in the punishing nihilism of 1982’s Pornography .

Back in the mid-1980s, when I first discovered the Cure and feverishly bought up all their albums, Faith was not one that stood out. It seems I was incapable of grasping the album’s full cosmic glory until my musical tastes matured, decades later. Nowadays, I find Faith ’s glacial minimalism mesmerizing.

Faith , in a sense, could be considered a concept album. It focuses on the motif of faith as both a religious and personal construct. All the songs overtly or covertly touch upon the subject. The eight songs on the compact Faith are bookended by the haunting dirge, “The Holy Hour” and the more contemplative title song.

“The Holy Hour” is a grim song musically, and darkly introspective lyrically. Here, a 22-year old Robert Smith muses about his agnostic leanings –he attends a church service to explore his capacity for religious belief, only to discover he fiercely questions such belief. Indeed, the church environment ends up being an oppressive milieu for him.

Aside from exploring interesting themes, the lyrics present an interesting structure: each verse is syntactically similar to the previous, and also builds to a climax in which the singer and lyricist desolately declares his inability to harbor religious conviction:

i kneel and wait in silence as one by one the people slip away into the night the quiet and empty bodies kiss the ground before they pray and slip away… i sit and listen dreamlessly a promise of salvation makes me stay then look at your face and feel my heart pushed in as all around the children play the games they tired of yesterday they play i stand and hear my voice cry out a wordless scream at ancient power it breaks against stone i softly leave you crying… i cannot hold what you devour the sacrifice of penance in the holy hour The Cure’s “The Holy Hour”

These lyrics intensely resonate with atheistic ideologies about the near-futility of religion. The brooding music lures the listener into a transcendent trance. Smith had not fully developed his voice during the Faith recordings, and yet his ghostly vocals hold a strange sway, seemingly emanating from an otherwordly cathedral. 

“Faith” the song has a riveting, bleak beauty. It is a fitting ending to a stunningly subtle album, and it elaborates on the ideas first touched on in “The Holy Hour”, asserting that there is nothing left but faith. Not a corrosive faith in supernatural deities, mind you, but a more buoyant faith in humanity. The song nicely enfolds the emotions of anger and angst, and even wonder and joy at being alive.

“Primary” is the second song on Faith and is the most upbeat number on an album otherwise overcast with somber skies. This is not to suggest that it is a happy song, but it is vigorously driven by chugging bass guitars that purely embody the post-punk ethos. Thematically the song is a topic that Smith forever obsesses over” the inexorable decay of youth as we move through life.

“Other Voices”, the third track, is sublime for its echoing, cavernous vocal effects, and a bassline that betrays a vaguely funky beat. The poetic and dreamy “All Cats Are Grey” and the deliciously gloomy and ever-so-slightly cheesy “Funeral Party” further imbue the album with murky colors and an austere impressionistic sense.

“Doubt” is the song that some fans profess to be the weakest on the album, one that destabilizes the album’s morose mood with its frenzied punk aesthetic. But “Doubt” is an essential piece to move the album forward. Its vitriol offers odd respite in such a doom-laden atmosphere; sometimes melancholy is too muted an emotion, and we need the exuberance of anger to help us re-focus our energies.

“Drowning Man” the penultimate song, is perhaps the centerpiece of Faith, and the glum glue that holds the whole thing together. The song was inspired by the literary fantasy Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peak e. In the story, the character of Fuschia ends up accidentally drowning herself owing to heartbreak. The song covers this aspect of the story. Musically it epitomizes the icy sting of post-punk and captivates the senses with its drum pad and “claptrap” effects. It hypnotically captures the suffocating sense of being swept away in a flood.

Faith comes from a haunted, solipsistic place. Every Cure album abounds in merits, but Faith seems to be the one that is the most obsession-inducing. It seduces you into its tormented world, and try as you might, you cannot escape. You are lured back time and time again into Faith’s dark poetic soundscape.

Note: To celebrate Faith ’s 40th anniversary, the album is being pressed on a picture disc for the first time. The new pressing was available exclusively as part of Record Store Day 2021 .

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Faith (Deluxe Edition)

The Cure’s third album, 1981’s Faith, features a core trio responding to the chiseled minimalism of its predecessor, 1980’s Seventeen Seconds, with a deeper emotional resonance and carefully orchestrated keyboards from leader Robert Smith. Recorded at a time when the band was experimenting with drugs and still establishing itself as an iconoclastic voice, Faith is a thoroughly assured collection of fully-realized compositions that flirt with questions of faith, fate and somber, sobering realities. Yet unlike the emotional excesses that would lead the band to their future extreme heights, the songs here are intense, yet restrained. “Doubt” steps on the accelerator and points towards the Cure sound most familiar to its later fans. However, most of the cuts follow a solemn form. “All Cats Are Grey” posts an eternal yearn in its slow, protruding chords, while “The Funeral Party” marches through a wintry field as the voices echo in what sounds like a futile, existential void.

April 14, 1981 24 Songs, 2 hours, 15 minutes ℗ 2005 Elektra Entertaiment Company, manufactured and marketed by Rhino Entertainment Company, a Warner Music Group company

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[1981 - THE CURE] - Faith

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The Cure in Holland

The Cure in Holland

Circus Tour 1981

Tent2

Why a circus tent?

In their pretty brief existence, The Cure had already performed hundreds of shows, only within a couple of years. They had been playing the English and European club circuit multiple times. By the last quarter of 1980, when they were trying out new songs live for the next album Faith , the band were becoming a bit tired of playing the same bleak venues with poor acoustics over and over again. The idea arose to play in less obvious and more atmospheric places, like old buildings or churches (which would have suited their new songs quite well I think).

A church tour appeared to be a bridge too far. However, Dutch impresario Fred Zijlstra was willing to think along about a different approach and came up with the circus tent, which idea actually originated from his co-organiser Frans de Bie. The Cure were in to try something new. In this interview you can read some more background information about how the circus tent idea took shape.

Tour logistics

The crew that travelled along with The Cure on the Circus Tour consisted of about 30 people. Besides The Cure’s own road crew, there were young Dutch men and women among them, who basically volunteered to build up and break down the circus tent every day, mostly for the adventure. Not only the concert venue itself needed to be built up from zero on the empty grass fields where The Cure Circus called at. After the tent had been constructed, the stage had to be set up, then the PA system (hired from Pink Floyd), the lights, projectors and screens, a bar and a merchandise stand. On the Dutch roads of June ’81 a lot of people must have driven past this remarkable Cure Circus convoy with several trucks, cars, caravans and a mobile cash desk. Food for the crew had to be prepared on-site and could be eaten in the canteen bus. Early in the tour the toilet vehicle broke down, one of the reasons why the band themselves (wisely) chose to stay in hotels.

Queue

The standard set list on this tour was:

The Holy Hour, In Your House, The Drowning Man, 10:15 Saturday Night, Accuracy, The Funeral Party, M, Primary, Other Voices, All Cats Are Grey, Three Imaginary Boys, At Night, Fire In Cairo, Play For Today, Grinding Halt, A Forest, Faith

Encore 1: Jumping Someone Else’s Train, Another Journey By Train, Killing An Arab

Encore 2: Boys Don’t Cry, I’m Cold, Forever (not sure if both encores have been played on all dates)

The weather

Despite that the 21 st of June marks the beginning of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the last ten days of June 1981 were everything but hot, dry or pleasant holiday weather. Call it a typical Dutch Summer, with a lot of rain, wind and rather chilly temperatures. Obviously these conditions had more impact on the whole entourage than usually, because this leg of the Picture Tour had quite a camping feel to it. But by going through this ‘ordeal’ together, the travelling companions developed a very special bond.

21 June 1981 – Amsterdam, Evenementen-terrein, Jan van Galenstraat

By June 21 st 1981, The Cure had already played over 50 shows on the Picture Tour. They kicked off mid-April with an extensive UK tour, did a couple of shows in Ireland and then travelled to Belgium and Germany, almost without any days off. The night before Amsterdam, The Cure had played in Essen in the Ruhr area. From there it must have been about a 3 hours drive to Amsterdam in those days. Initially the concert was planned to take place at the Oude RAI premises, but for some reason it was relocated to a field at the Jan van Galenstraat, close to the Erasmus Park.

RobertAdam81bw

In The Cure’s official biography Ten Imaginary Years it is mentioned that June 21 st 1981 was the day Lol’s mother passed away. According to this book he received the sad news during the concert (backstage, after the main set) in Sittard (see below), which was three days later. I guess it might be possible that in their memory they have swapped some dates in hindsight. Maybe Lol got this message in Amsterdam or in Harderwijk the next day?

22 June 1981 – Harderwijk, Festival-terrein aan de Parkweg

Harderwijk is a provincial town by the IJsselmeer (a sort of inland sea in the Netherlands). It is considered to be part of the Dutch Bible Belt. Not a very obvious location for a post-punk concert you would think, but then again maybe eligible given the title of The Cure’s latest album. 😉

On the right is a snippet from a local newspaper announcing the gig. On the same page there is a little article honouring the candidates from a near village who had just obtained their type writing certificate!

23 June 1981 – Arnhem, Evenementen-terrein bij de Rijnhal

The gig in Arnhem is the first one on the Circus Tour of which a live recording is circulating. It is striking how the band sounded like a well-oiled machine at this stage, which is no wonder given the huge amount of gigs they were doing at the time. With Lol’s excellent tight, mechanical drum beats, Simon’s note perfect bass lines and Robert’s meandering chord strokes and echoing voice, The Cure had created a unique style of their own, recognizable among thousands.

The set was being built up with quite slow and atmospheric songs, starting with the trio The Holy Hour , In Your House and The Drowning Man . You can hear that as of the next song 10:15 Saturday Night the crowd is getting on its feet, singing and clapping along. During the intro of A Forest , when Lol starts the beat, the crowd goes ‘Hey! Hey! Hey!…’.

Though the temperatures were low outside, the atmosphere inside the tent seemed rather stuffy. After All Cats Are Grey you can hear a couple complaining about the heat. This guy says: ‘Ik zweet me kapot… Veel te warm die tent!’ [meaning: ‘I sweat my ass off here… That tent is way too hot!’]

As usual on The Picture Tour, the last song of the main set – Faith – was played in an extended version with improvised lyrics. In Arnhem Robert repeatedly sings ‘Slowly the picture fades…’, a line that would occur more often on Faith versions during this tour and seemed to continue on the themes of the new album, about getting older, departure, loss…

24 June 1981 – Sittard, Terrein Serviam, Haspelsestraat (‘t Knoakeveldje)

Sittard, a small city in the Province of Limburg, in between the borders of Germany and Belgium, was the southernmost date on the Circus Tour. Here the gig had been organized in cooperation with Jan Smeets of Buro Pinkpop, who would also book The Cure as headliner for the Pinkpop Festival editions of 1986 and 2012.

In early 2015 a short interview with Jan Smeets about his memories of The Cure was published online . Jan revealed some information about the Circus Tent show in Sittard. He told that the gig even made it to the Council meeting due to noise pollution. Apparently the budget for the organization of the concert was fl. 13.000,- (in Dutch guilders), which would amount to approximately EUR 5.900,- nowadays. Jan also kept some other documents in his file, including The Cure’s rider. According to him it mentioned 1 bottle of dry white wine, 1 bottle of medium white wine, 12 cans of beer, but I guess it could also be some more…

This gig also received mentioning in The Cure’s official biography Ten Imaginary Years, for very sad reasons:

“Robert: (…) at Sittard on 24 th of June, just before we went on stage for an encore, someone came up to Lol and told him to phone England urgently. They told him ‘Your mother’s dead’ – simply, just like that. We went back on stage and played ‘Faith’. Lol started, played for about a minute, and then stopped and just sat there without moving. We all returned to England the following day and we played the cassette of that concert at his mother’s funeral. It was very strange. After the ceremony, we went to get drunk and Lol decided we absolutely must restart the tour or he’d go mad. It was very hard… horrible, even if the music was perfect for the circumstances…”

Paul Evers, journalist for the Dutch music magazine Oor, followed the band around on the last couple of days of the Circus Tour. He wrote: “Meanwhile I know that his [Lol’s, LF] mother died a couple of days earlier and this event hangs over the three members of the group like a melancholic, greyish veil. Later on Robert will tell that he hasn’t done any interviews since, because he just couldn’t do it anymore (…). Lol Tolhurst just kept going: ‘The others said I had to return to England straight away and if I would have wanted to stay there, they would have cancelled the tour immediately. That’s friendship. I came back because I felt I had to continue. And my mother would have wanted that we would keep going. She was very involved with The Cure.’”

Jeff Apter interviewed Lol Tolhurst for the unofficial Cure biography Never Enough. Lol told Jeff: “When we were in Germany, I came back to see her; she was staying with my sister who was a registered nurse. I knew she had about a month. I told everyone on the crew that if I got a call about her before a show, tell me afterwards because there’s not much I can do. We were in Holland when my brother called. I drove down to Amsterdam that night, flew back, saw everyone, made the funeral arrangements and then kept touring because I figured that’s what my mother would want. Those few following nights after were the weirdest shows I’d ever played. There’s a little causeway at the top of Holland [maybe Lol is referring to the Afsluitdijk, when they drove from The Hague to Leeuwarden, LF] and I remember driving along that a day or two after she died, and I saw these swans on one side in the freshwater and also in the sea, which always struck me as very weird.”

Again, due to a tight schedule of many similar concerts and clouded memories it still may be possible that this all did not happen in Sittard but somewhere else that week. Anyway, these must have been very difficult and emotional times for Lol and the band, only aged 22 at the time. The decision of Lol to keep touring under the circumstances, travelling back and forth to England in one day and performing again the same night, shows how passionate and dedicated he was for The Cure.

25 June 1981 – Den Bosch, Zuiderpark aan de Hekellaan

The show in Den Bosch is the best documented concert on the Circus Tour as it has been recorded for Dutch national radio. In total, about 2/3 of the concert has been broadcasted by the Dutch broadcasting association VARA, divided into three parts, throughout the eighties. These are the songs of the broadcasts, if I am correct in the following broadcasting order:

I – Three Imaginary Boys, At Night, Fire In Cairo, Play For Today, Grinding Halt

II – 10:15 Saturday Night, Accuracy, The Funeral Party, M, Primary, Other Voices

III – Primary, Three Imaginary Boys, A Forest, Faith

According to the website of the Dutch Institute for Image and Sound it appears that there should still exist about two hours of recorded material of this concert in the archives. Obviously it would be great if they would broadcast or release the entire show some day. Not so hard to imagine a sleeve for this live album: a big circus tent, with on top Dutch flags and The Cure’s ‘drop C’ logo! 🙂

26 June 1981 – Vlissingen, Parkeerterrein Nollebos

Vlissingen

This gig was reviewed in a local newspaper. The journalist observed ‘frenzied scenes’ at the concert and wrote:

The music of The Cure isn’t quite cheerful and the lyrics do not expose the most happy sides of existence (the group is being regarded as part of the ‘doom-division’ of pop music), but the response of the Vlissingen audience in the packed and scorching circus tent negated this opinion in all respects.

Initially the performance was full of dreary and mystic atmospheres, which are so characteristic for The Cure, but towards the end of the concert it became more and more a musical happening, in which the audience reached the boiling point when the first tones of the hit ‘A Forest’ resounded.

Then the performance couldn’t be better and the the group was being called back for two encores.

27 June 1981 – Rotterdam, Park bij de Euromast

Also the show in Rotterdam has been reviewed. Louis du Moulin wrote the following article for ‘Het Vrije Volk’:

Full tent at special Cure night

Rotterdam – the Circus Tour of the English pop group The Cure across the Netherlands is at least in one respect a great success. Commercially, the expensive ten-day trip surpasses all expectations. Every place where the caravan chooses to bivouac, the enormous tent is full. That was also the case last Saturday night in the park next to the Euromast. Almost 2.000 fans experienced an alternative pop night with the trio from Crawley under the canvas.

Also musically speaking the concert was very successful. Starting-point of this tour for The Cure was a better sound in their own tent, in which they had rehearsed extensively, instead of the usual slogging in all kinds of inconvenient little rooms. The repertoire, selected from four LP’s, could be heard superbly and was brought at the right volume (also for the surroundings).

That also applied to the music of “Carnage Visors”, the half an hour film experiment of the group, which served as support act. However, the images were shadowy, most of the visitors hardly knew how to deal with it. Also because the screen was too small and invisible for the vast majority of the standing crowd.

Not being able to sit down and the lack of ventilation in the boiling hot tent during the 2,5 hour lasting performance obviously dropped the enthusiasm for the receipt of the flawless gig. Only on some occasions, such as during the hit “A Forest” of last year, the spark passed on from the stage to the room. Singer-guitarist Robert Smith , bassplayer Simon Gallup and drummer Lol Tolhurst (who travelled back and forth to England to take leave of his deceased mother on one day last week) didn’t seem to care about the lukewarm response.

As the performance progressed, a bigger problem became the lack of sanitary. The toilet vehicle was broken, so all those in need were obliged to hold themselves or to seek sanctuary in the bushes. The rain during the day already had got the heavy trucks into trouble on the lawn. The downpour of yesterday morning meant even more struggle to get the rolling stock back on the road. There were no further incidents during the concert evening itself.

Robert dedicated Boys Don’t Cry to ‘Alison’. Rotterdam is one of the two shows (Leeuwarden being the other) of which the grand finale of the concert has been captured on tape: the improvisation song known as Forever , which originated from the track Three off the Seventeen Seconds album. In Rotterdam it turned out into an aggressive and chaotic 11 minutes wall of noise, with Robert desperately screaming that ‘the sky goes black’…

28 June 1981 – Den Haag, Malieveld

DenHaagticket2

As far as I know, there is not much audio or visual material preserved from this particular gig, except for this worn ticket. The concert tickets for the Dutch leg of the Picture Tour all had the same layout in Cure Circus style, but with different colours for each city.

Obviously that night it must have been raining heavily as well, since Lol told Oor-reporter Paul Evers that drops were falling from the roof of the tent onto his cymbals.

According to the same Oor article, it was in Den Haag that the crew lost the keys to a bus and a caravan, forcing them to leave these vehicles behind.

29 June 1981 – Leeuwarden, Bodeterrein aan de Heliconweg (opposite the former Frieslandhal)

From The Hague the Cure convoy drove via the Afsluitdijk to the North-East of the Netherlands for the last two shows of the Circus Tour. On the Afsluitdijk, which is basically a dike between two (inland) seas, it can be quite windy and the Cure-logo was blown off a truck.

Afsluitdijk

That night Robert apparently was annoyed by some people in the audience. He told Oor: ‘After the third song a couple at the front stood there screaming all the time “I hate rock ‘n’ roll, I hate rock ‘n’ roll!” and I thought: for God’s sake, how can you call The Drowning Man rock ‘n’ roll, without being a reactionary? I got very angry and told them to shut up, instead of ignoring them, what I usually do. During Three , the last song of the encores, I put down my guitar and turned up all the effects. Just when I was about to jump in the room, they were gone… I got really angry you know, because you definitely cannot say from us that we’re rock ‘n’ roll (…)’.

In retrospect, I guess it may be possible that the couple was just referring to Robert’s own joke at the Countdown Live festival, the year before in Amsterdam on 17 October 1980. The band arrived late that night and had to soundcheck in front of the audience. Robert said that because it’s nice for everything to have name, he called the soundcheck I Hate Rock ‘n’ Roll (that show was broadcasted on Dutch radio and part of it on TV).

30 June 1981 – Groningen, Stadspark

Originally the final date of the Circus Tour was planned to take place on the corner of the Korreweg and Bloemsingel. But the municipality of Groningen decided last minute to allocate the Stadspark for the show, more far away from the city centre. They expected there to be less excessive noise. There was some delay in the planning, because the truck carrying the tent didn’t fit under a little bridge when it entered the Stadspark.

Cover81

Paul Evers wrote in Oor that, in accordance with tradition at the end of a tour, the crew played a couple of tricks on the band. At the start of A Forest , a tape would play the sound of a tree felling and a jacketed waiter would come to provide the band with wine. In addition, they would throw mackerel, fishes on sticks and attached to ropes would be pulled through the group and beer would be sprayed from aerosols. For the first time, Paul Evers wrote, he saw Robert Smith laughing on stage.

Thus ended the successful and legendary Circus Tour. The day after Groningen, The Cure probably went back to England. But only a couple of days later, on 4 and 5 July 1981, they were on the continent again, playing the Torhout – Werchter Festival in Belgium.

You can read a full English translation of the very nice Oor article about the Circus Tour on Pictures of You .

I’m still looking for an article entitled ‘Cure kampeert’, which should be a review of the Amsterdam June 21 st show. I don’t know in which magazine or newspaper it was published, but if you have it I would greatly appreciate a scan! 🙂

Many thanks to Ruud.

COMMENTS

  1. The Cure Concerts 1981

    1981-05-03 Birmingham - Odeon Theatre (England) The Holy Hour, In Your House, Other Voices, 10.15 Saturday Night, Accuracy, The Funeral Party, M, The Drowning Man, All Cats Are Grey, Three Imaginary Boys, Primary, At Night, Fire In Cairo, Play For Today, Grinding Halt, A Forest, Faith.

  2. Faith (The Cure album)

    Faith is the third studio album by English rock band the Cure, released on 17 April 1981 by Fiction Records.The album saw the band continuing in the gloomy vein of their previous effort Seventeen Seconds (1980). This stylistic theme would conclude with their next album Pornography (1982).. Preceded by the single "Primary", the album was well-received by critics and was a commercial success in ...

  3. The Cure Live

    A fair-quality cassette recording from the Faith tour, plenty of gloomy numbers from one of the few US shows on that tour. ... Cure_1981-07-27 Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.7.0 Year 1981 . plus-circle Add Review. comment. Reviews There are no reviews yet. Be the ...

  4. THE CURE

    Faith album played live during 1981 tour. Obviously missing Doubt which was never played live in 1981THE HOLY HOUR (Tubingen, 10.06.1981)PRIMARY (Werchter, 0...

  5. Revisiting The Cure's 'Faith' (1981)

    Happy 40th Anniversary to The Cure's third studio album Faith, originally released April 14, 1981.. To this day, Faith, the middle passage in The Cure's early-career trilogy hasn't received its due. At the time of its release in April 1981, critical reaction was mixed. And the accompanying Picture Tour proved long and unruly, with showgoers on both sides of the equator taking audible ...

  6. The Cure

    Faith from the final show on the eight appearances tour at the end on 1981. From The Hammersmith Odeon, London, England 3rd December 1981.Show Info: http://w...

  7. The Cure Live

    the cure, gothic rock, bootleg, flac Pressed as a 2xLP bootleg ( Live at the Funeral Party ) soon after the show, this is a set from the Picture Tour that includes seven of the eight songs off Faith and a good selection of others.

  8. [Review] The Cure: Faith (1981)

    The second in the band's dark trilogy, including songs inspired by the death of Ian Curtis. Kronomyth 3.0: Greys period. Faith is the second in the band's dark trilogy begun with Seventeen Seconds and ended with Pornography.In many ways, Faith is the most beautiful of their early records, rich in sonic detail, infused with delicate sympathy. It's the enigma of Robert Smith as an artist ...

  9. The Cure: 35 years of Faith

    The album Faith had to be promoted. So The Cure wnet on tour. The band came to Holland as well. During the month of June, 1981, The Cure traveled around the country in a circustent. The Dutch leg of the Picture Tour was named the Circus Tour. It generated a lot of publicity for he band (in Holland anyway).

  10. The Cure

    " The whole band had a family member die, and that really colored Faith. The initial demos that we did in my mom and dad's dining room are really quite upbeat. Then, within about two weeks, the whole mood of the band had completely changed. "

  11. THE CURE

    ★ Follow TCDB on https://ko-fi.com/tcdbinfo to never miss a thing. It's free and you can login with your Google, Twitter, Facebook or email.☑ About This Vide...

  12. The Cure Live

    One of the most famous bootlegs from the Cure, a soundboard recording from the 1981 Picture Tour. With very little crowd noise, the recording makes the band sound alone and inspired, performing beautiful songs from Faith and earlier albums to the crowd in a dark, isolated environment.Arguably the perfect setting.

  13. Amazon.com: Faith (Deluxe Edition) : The Cure: Digital Music

    After the release of Seventeen Seconds, the Cure launched its first world tour. Following the Australian leg of the tour, Hartley exited the lineup and his former bandmates chose to continue without him, releasing their third album in 1981 (Faith) and watching it peak at number 14 in the charts. Faith also spawned the minor hit single "Primary."

  14. The Cure Concert Setlist at Odeon, Canterbury on April 27, 1981

    The Cure Gig Timeline. Apr 25 1981. Taunton Odeon Taunton, England. Add time. Apr 26 1981. The Hexagon Reading, England. Add time. Apr 27 1981. Odeon This Setlist Canterbury, England.

  15. Faith

    Faith by The Cure released in 1981. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic. ... Faith (1981) Pornography (1982) The Top (1984) The Head on the Door (1985) Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987) Disintegration (1989) Entreat (1991) Wish (1992) Paris (1993) Show (1993)

  16. The Cure

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  17. The Cure: Faith (1981)

    Before developing the balance between sophisticated pop and atmospheric moodiness that would characterize most of the band's work (best captured on 1989's excellent Disintegration ), Robert Smith penned a trio of intense, downbeat albums--1980's Seventeen Seconds, 1981's Faith, and 1982's Pornography. All are great, if a little hard to take in ...

  18. The Cure's Genre-Defining and Genre-Defying 'Faith' 40 Years On

    14 April 1981. One of the most potent post-punk albums in history was released 40 years ago this past April. That album, Faith, by the Cure, not only helped shape the post-punk sound, but it has ...

  19. ‎Faith (Deluxe Edition)

    The Cure. ALTERNATIVE · 1981. The Cure's third album, 1981's Faith, features a core trio responding to the chiseled minimalism of its predecessor, 1980's Seventeen Seconds, with a deeper emotional resonance and carefully orchestrated keyboards from leader Robert Smith. Recorded at a time when the band was experimenting with drugs and ...

  20. The Cure

    1981: Faith (LP, Album, Gatefold) 7 Records: MLF 443: Australia: 1981: Recommendations. Seventeen Seconds. The Cure. Released. 1980 — Germany. ... maybe to love, maybe to your own existence. thank you for showing us the way cure. Reply 2 . Helpful. putmeon Feb 24, 2022. Report; Fantastic pressing. I haven't heard the UK pressing(s) but this ...

  21. [1981

    [1981 - THE CURE] - Faith by Leon Pugli. Publication date 2021-03-28 Topics The Cure. THE CURE. FaithPublicación: 14 de abril de 1981Discográfica: Fiction Records. Addeddate 2021-03-28 22:38:46 Identifier faith_202103 Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.4. plus-circle Add Review. comment. Reviews

  22. The Cure

    "All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and I or this channel does not claim any right over them.Cop...

  23. The Cure

    Probably the most exceptional tour The Cure did in the Netherlands, if not ever, is the Circus Tour 1981. Exclusively for the Dutch leg of the Picture Tour promoting the Faith album, The Cure chose a radical alternative to clubs or other concert venues. The band travelled zig-zag through the Netherlands performing their show under a circus tent with a capacity of about 2.000 people.

  24. muspedia on Instagram: "The Cure's Best Love Songs. 1. Apart (Wish

    510 likes, 2 comments - muspedia on June 30, 2023: "The Cure's Best Love Songs. 1. Apart (Wish, 1992) 2. Charlotte Sometimes (Faith, 1981) 3. This ..."

  25. THE CURE EN ARGENTINA on Instagram: " Siempre agitando con The Cure

    81 likes, 4 comments - thecure.com.ar on March 6, 2024: " Siempre agitando con The Cure ️ Quienes me conocen ya saben que desde hace años vamos ...