Wednesday March 18th 1987: I pull open the curtains to the inevitable too hot and dreadfully sunny people camped outside, before rushing into Simon's room for milk and gossip. We leave for the football stadium at 3, and as we start a short final soundcheck, the sun hits 100 degrees. We melt down into the change room and, between interviews, listen to Nick Drake and Billie Holiday. The noise above increases inexorably, and we look nervously at each other as we are told that tonight, disregarding another ticket 'confusion', there will be 'no' trouble' ... The crowd surges forward as we go onstage, and despite the higher barricades and extra police (or more exactly because of the higher barries and extra police), battle begins. By half-way through the set there are several uniformed men on fire, with most of their comrades taking shelter under the stage from the ceaseless and merciless rain of coins, seats, stones and glass. Unfortunately not all of it is accurately thrown, and Porl is the first of us to be hit: the longer this goes on, the more bitter we become, and when a coke bottle cracks me full in the face during '10.15' I stop the song and go a touch berserk. We end with a gloriously punky thrash through 'Arabs-a-go-go' and then we are away. Outside the ground is not unlike downtown Beirut, and we are more than relieved to reach the sanctuary of the hotel. I go to bed shattered, the others spending varying amounts of time in the bar while I dream of murder...
from Cure News 15:
buenos aires, 1987
many things have been said about the cure concerts in buenos aires in march 1987. they were one of the first rock bands playing here after the end of our last black dictatorship (we had tours by bands like 'yes' in '85, but that was like a Grandfathers' convention! - you couldn't breathe a rock gig athmosphere then).thanks to 'the head on the door' and a great promotional campaign, the cure became the most important international rock band here. then they came to play two concerts at the fco football stadium. there were around 18,000 people each night. the first night we saw an incredibly absurd war between the argentinian security staff on the field, (some with dogs) and maybe 300 of the 'public' who started trying to jump onto the field. the war finished, and 45 minutes later the cure were giving an amazing concert. the set was exactly the same as 'the cure in orange' (still not edited at that time). 'shake dog shake' was hard and slow, 'a strange day' pulled our heads to bits and we were all shivering with 'kyoto song'. most of the audience only knew 'the head on the door' or even only it's singles plus a pair of other classics, so only a few of us (no more than 1000 people) were delighted and amazed with terrifying versions of 'one hundred years', 'faith', 'give me it' and 'sinking'; the fave new song at that time.
the second night the violence was during the show and was directed at the band. porl had to go backstage during one song, i can't remember well (maybe 'play for today') and robert stopped the band on '10.15', told some hard stuff to the violent bastards (but not as hard as the bastards deserved) and then came back to the song furiously. the show was shorter (surely the band's decision due to the violence), but was as solid and brilliant as the first night. the sound was not loud enough but the quality was the best we've heard here. some of the audience left with a bitter taste because we were thinking that the band would leave our country hating us all. but i can say it was not like that. fortunately. after that night i knew i wanted (and needed) much more cure; so commenced my plans to travel to see future concerts. but that's another story .....
german (buenos aires)
from Alberto A.:
I can confirm (my wife and a couple of friends were there) what in the 2 shows of Buenos Aires (March 17-18 1987) There was a support act; an argentinian band called "LA SOBRECARGA". I knew that Chris Parry was anger with the Argentinian Production because he didn't know about a local band supporting The Cure. The set of "SOBRECARGA" was 20-25 minutes long.... the second night was shorter because "THE CURE" wanted to play a couple of minutes before, because the people in the stadium was going wild!!!!
