1978-07-09 Crawley - The Rocket (England)

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Robert Smith
Laurence Tolhurst
Michael Dempsey

Day of the week: Sunday
Tour: -

Attendance: ~65
Capacity:

This was the band's first concert under the name 'The Cure'.

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Article links:

post-punk.com: On This Day in 1978, The Cure Played Their First Gig

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from the book 'Ten Imaginary Years'

The Cure played a special gig on 9 July at The Rocket called 'Mourning the Departed'.
Robert: "A lot of people said 'Oh, you've got to get Porl back, there's no guitar solos or anything' so we put on this concert where we used this backing tape I had made at home with an organ and a drum machine and church music and we held a 40 minute mock religious ceremony. We had a seance in the pub - brilliant! I nailed a piece of wood to the Top 20 to make it into a crucifix and wore a priest's outfit and we had this kind of Cabaret Voltaire backdrop.
"The best thing that happened was Porl arrived in a hat and an old mac, in disguise, and we didn't know he was in the audience until, just as we finished playing, he walked up and poured a pint of beer over Lol's head! Suddenly, we were friends again!"

https://t.co/6vwvATpbAU pic.twitter.com/a8Xkh6Dh6T
— Chain of Flowers (@CraigatCoF) July 9, 2024

First concert as 'The Cure'?:

It is said that Porl left the band on 3 May 1977 and the band subsequently dropped 'Easy' from the band name. In 2018 Robert stated that the new three-piece band had their first concert as The Cure on 9 July.
This contradicts the two confirmed concerts 1978-05-18 Crawley - The Rocket and 1978-06-11 Redhill - Lakers Hotel (plus the alleged concert on 1978-06-16 Brighton - The Buccaneer) which took place in the period between Porl's departure from the band and the official first concert as The Cure.
So it is not known whether the two concerts in May/June 1978 were played under the name 'The Easy Cure' or whether these dates are simply wrong.