1984-11-17 New York City - Beacon Theatre (USA/NY)

Mainset:

Shake Dog Shake
Piggy In The Mirror
Wailing Wall
M
Primary
Cold
The Hanging Garden
Charlotte Sometimes
Secrets
The Walk
Let's Go To Bed
One Hundred Years
Give Me It
A Forest
The Top

Encore 1:

Happy The Man
The Caterpillar

Encore 2:

Three Imaginary Boys
Boys Don't Cry

Encore 3:

The Lovecats
10.15 Saturday Night
Killing An Arab
Forever

Robert Smith
Boris Williams
Porl Thompson
Laurence Tolhurst
Phil Thornalley

Songs played: 23 (15 | 2 | 2 | 4)

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

Attendance:
Capacity:

This was the last The Cure concert of Phil Thornalley.

Mainset:

[???]

Shake Dog Shake

[???]

Piggy In The Mirror

thank you. what? this is called 'the wailing wall'

Wailing Wall

thank you. this is an old .. much old one. this is called 'm'

thank you. it's a bit difficult to [...] this is called 'primary'

Primary

thank you. this is from [...] this is called 'cold'

Cold

this is from the same bit as that one called. and this is called 'the hanging garden'

The Hanging Garden

thank you. this is called 'charlotte sometimes'

Charlotte Sometimes

this is [...] called 'secrets'

Secrets

this is called 'the walk'

The Walk

thank you. [...] this is called 'Let's Go To Bed'

Let's Go To Bed

thank you. this follows that completely imperfectly. this is called 'a hundred years'

One Hundred Years

[???]

Give Me It

A Forest

thank you. this is called 'the top'

The Top

thank you, good night

Encore 1:

[???]

Happy The Man

and this shoe is like 'caterpillar'

The Caterpillar

thank you and good night. thank you

Encore 2:

[???] a'h this is much older than that. this is called 'three imaginary boys'

Three Imaginary Boys

and this one is even older than that one. this is called 'Boys Don't Cry'

Boys Don't Cry

thank you

Encore 3:

we had to wait for the [...] guitar to came out, that's all. this is a'hm .. we had, we've only done this one once and it's pretty [...] and this is for a'hm .. everyone that keeps asking us to play it and we never do. particular [...] ah this is called 'the lovecats'

The Lovecats

[...]

10.15 Saturday Night

Killing An Arab

Forever

[???]

stage banter segments may be wrong or incomplete
[...] marks not understandable banter segments
[???] marks that it is unknown whether anything else was said at this point

thanks to Autumn @ picturesofyou.us

NME (1984-12-08) | from JC Moglia

? (1984-12-08) | from Autumn

Photo links:

Photos by Greg Fasolino

from the book 'Ten Imaginary Years'

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!"