1984-11-12 Toronto - Concert Hall (Canada/ON)

 

Robert Smith
Boris Williams
Porl Thompson
Laurence Tolhurst
Phil Thornalley

Songs played: 21  (14 | 2 | 2 | 3)

Day of the week: Monday
Tour: 'The Top Tour'

Attendance:
Capacity:

event:	Concert
hosted by:
recording:
broadcast:
performance:

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Robert: "So we arrived on the West Coast of America with a three week tour ahead of us, without a drummer and in a bit of a panic. We were in this bar deciding whether to cancel the tour or whether Lol should drum and we should carry on as a four piece when Phil phoned up a mate of his, Vince Ely, who used to drum with The Psychedelic Furs but who was now living in this beach house with someone from The Go Gos, mellowing out as a West Coast producer. Vince hadn't drummed in a band for about two years but he was up for it so he did a day and a half's rehearsal with us and played 11 concerts, 40 minute sets, learning the songs in soundcheck. Unfortunately, he was doing advertising work, producing jingles or something, so we knew he'd have to leave the tour somewhere around Texas. Again we thought of playing as a four piece but again Phil put out a call, this time to Boris Williams who he'd met drumming with The Thompson Twins and Kim Wilde.
Robert: "Boris had actually already come to see us play at the Palladium in Hollywood, just to see the band and say hello to Phil so we called him up and, when Vince left, he joined up at the First Avenue Entry in Minneapolis on 7th November and he knew all the songs! He'd learned them off a tape in the interim - it was brilliant."
Boris: "I'd just finished a tour with The Thompson Twins and I was on holiday in LA with Cynde, my girlfriend, when Phil, who I'd met when he worked as an engineer for the Twins, asked me to drum for The Cure for a few weeks. I had to learn their songs as fast as possible so I ran all over LA looking for their records and, from then on, it was in at the deep end. We started doing really short sets and added one or two songs a day until, at the Beacon Theatre in New York, we played for an hour and 50 minutes. Actually, it wasn't too hard to learn their songs once I knew how they started and how they finished! Ha ha! It was a big change for me - really refreshing. At last I was really playing the drums. With the Twins it was all electronic and precise whereas The Cure gave me more freedom and they were creative and fun."
Robert: "We had to smuggle him in and out of Canada because he didn't have a permit but, by the time we played the last concert in New York, it was really good, just like when Andy was playing. Boris learned the rest of the songs in soundchecks and we did a complete set and there was a really good reaction,so we asked him if, when he got back to England, he'd get in touch with us instead of going back to the Thompson Twins. Meeting him was just a happy accident really. He liked what we did because, with The Thompson Twins, he had to repeat the same thing exactly every night whereas, with us, it's slow one night and fast the next. We got on well too - he had a Cure sense of humour. The only thing he was dubious about was the money because he was obviously getting paid an extraordinary amount with The Thompson Twins. But we kept saying 'Boris, Boris, think of your art' and he eventually agreed. He made the right decision!"

unknown whether there was an opening act

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1. 1981-08-30 Concert Hall
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