Fact #137087
When:
Short story:
The Cure, Deftones, Blink 182, Interpol, AFI and Razorlight play in MTV's Cure – Icon show at Old Billingsgate Market, London, England, UK.
Full article:
Johnny Black (journalist) : Having been interviewed at home in my study by MTV for this Icon show, I was invited along and managed to secure a couple of tickets for my children, Joie and Will. We had dinner in a pizzeria nearby, then stood out in the cold for what seemed like an eternity waiting to get in.
It was worth the wait though. The venue was split into two zones, a dark, cavernous ante-room with a bar and a huge screen playing videos, plus another area next door with raked seating and a beautifully dressed stage, very much in a Tim Burton gothic style.
Tim Weber (BBC reviewer) : The invitation-only event in London's old fish market was packed. Floating on a big screen above the stage was a full moon, eerie enough to persuade any werewolf to give away his game.
Johnny Black : As is the way with these made-for-tv productions, there was a lot of waiting around while MTV presenters endeavoured to vibe up the crowd, which was over-stocked with Cure clones and wonderfully bizarre-looking people.
We set ourselves up just in front of the camera pit, in the standing area of the hall, and The Cure were seated on a side-stage just behind us to our left. Marilyn Manson acted as the event’s host, and did his utmost to get a rise out of Robert Smith by kneeling in front of him during one of his introductions, as if he was a slave and Robert was the king.
Blink 182 delighted the crowd with a storming rendition of A Letter To Elise, then boosted the thrill factor even higher when Robert Smith joined them onstage to sing All Of This.
I enjoyed all of the bands, except Razorlight, who just didn’t seem to me to have grasped the melody of Boys Don’t Cry, and sounded a bit messy. I was particularly pleased when The Deftones did a mind-bendingly good version of If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, because it’s a particular favourite of mine, and a song I hadn’t expected to hear. To make the whole thing even better, technical problems meant that they had to play it twice!
Abe Cunningham (Deftones) : What do you do when Robert Smith comes calling? You fly to London, kick it with some friends, play one song, have a blast then fly home. We had about a minute before we had to go on stage and I was kind of nervous because we were about to play a Cure song with The Cure watching us from about ten feet away. So I dash into the bathroom to drain my beast and BAAAM … it’s me and Robert in this big-ass restroom with like a hundred urinals and a hundred sinks, mirrors and stalls everywhere and shit.
He’s standing there putting on his make-up, clutching this little compact. He’s all, ‘Hey mate’ and I’m like, ‘Hey, Robert.’ Feeling kinda bad cuz I busted into his tranquil pre-show zone and fucked up his chi.
Chi Cheng (Deftones) : That was harrowing. It was nerve-wracking. All the cover songs, you do them and record them, and you get feedback later. It was the most intimidating thing for Robert Smith to be sitting there. You can't tell whether he likes it. Afterward, he was so cool. It was amazing.
Tim Weber : It was well past midnight when The Cure themselves finally took to the stage, and from the first riff it was obvious that they have managed to haul their music firmly into the 21st century.
Johnny Black : The climax of the show came when The Cure took the stage to play a brief but exhilarating set, which brought the night to a perfect close.
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THE INFLUENCE OF THE CURE
by Johnny Black
In the recent MTV Icon show honouring The Cure, Robert Smith revealed that, “It was only when Dinosaur Jr covered Just Like Heaven that it occurred to me that we could be inspiring other people.”
By that point, though, The Cure had been going for a decade, so it was likely that aspiring young musicians would be listening to them and might feel moved to make music by their influence. To hear Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno acknowledge that, “It was listening to Robert Smith that got me interested in writing lyrics,” is perhaps not too surprising, because both bands have stylistic similarities, but to learn that Shakira has name-checked The Cure as an influence, or that members of the Polyphonic Spree count themselves as Cure fans, suggests that Smith’s influence has reached places that most pop icons cannot reach.
All of the bands who went out as part of the recent Curiosa tour – including such vibrant young artists as Interpol, The Rapture and Mogwai - were avowedly Cure fans, but it’s revealing to hear Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler admit that when they first met Smith, “we weren’t able to converse with him because we were star-struck.”
In person, Smith goes out of his way to avoid rock star behaviour or attitudes yet, for legions of passionate devotees, merely basking in his unassuming presence is overwhelming.
If the musical diversity of the artists who claim kinship with The Cure seems remarkable, it’s worth noting that there is one thing which draws them all together – passion. Artists who feel compelled to perform after hearing Robert Smith don’t necessarily adopt a Cure-like sound, or write Cure-style lyrics, but they are virtually without exception artists for whom their music is their very raison d’etre.
Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example, stand as two of the most uncompromising bands of the 90s. No Cure influence is immediately evident from a casual listen to their music, but both have acknowledged it. “The music on Californication,” says Chili’s guitarist John Frusciante, “a lot of it was really influenced by The Cure, and no critic has ever picked up on that.”
At first glance, to have influenced such a wide range of artists seems extraordinary but one clue lies in Chester Benington of Linkin Park’s observation that, “They’re one of the most important bands because they changed the way people think about music.”
Very few artists, no matter how many CDs they sell, can change the way people think. Michael Jackson inspired countless imitators who sing and dance in a style almost identical to him. The Rolling Stones inspired a thousand bands to get up and bash out three chord rock’n’roll roll riffs for the hell of it. Only a handful of artists – Bob Dylan and The Beatles among them – can claim to have changed how people thought.
The reason why is self-evident. Such artists are originals. They are innovators. What they inspire in other artists is not a desire to copy them, but a determination to listen to their own hearts and follow their own paths. As Alicia Keys, another unlikely Cure fan, has said, “I love groups that say things in ways that are different – and that’s what I love about The Cure.”
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It was worth the wait though. The venue was split into two zones, a dark, cavernous ante-room with a bar and a huge screen playing videos, plus another area next door with raked seating and a beautifully dressed stage, very much in a Tim Burton gothic style.
Tim Weber (BBC reviewer) : The invitation-only event in London's old fish market was packed. Floating on a big screen above the stage was a full moon, eerie enough to persuade any werewolf to give away his game.
Johnny Black : As is the way with these made-for-tv productions, there was a lot of waiting around while MTV presenters endeavoured to vibe up the crowd, which was over-stocked with Cure clones and wonderfully bizarre-looking people.
We set ourselves up just in front of the camera pit, in the standing area of the hall, and The Cure were seated on a side-stage just behind us to our left. Marilyn Manson acted as the event’s host, and did his utmost to get a rise out of Robert Smith by kneeling in front of him during one of his introductions, as if he was a slave and Robert was the king.
Blink 182 delighted the crowd with a storming rendition of A Letter To Elise, then boosted the thrill factor even higher when Robert Smith joined them onstage to sing All Of This.
I enjoyed all of the bands, except Razorlight, who just didn’t seem to me to have grasped the melody of Boys Don’t Cry, and sounded a bit messy. I was particularly pleased when The Deftones did a mind-bendingly good version of If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, because it’s a particular favourite of mine, and a song I hadn’t expected to hear. To make the whole thing even better, technical problems meant that they had to play it twice!
Abe Cunningham (Deftones) : What do you do when Robert Smith comes calling? You fly to London, kick it with some friends, play one song, have a blast then fly home. We had about a minute before we had to go on stage and I was kind of nervous because we were about to play a Cure song with The Cure watching us from about ten feet away. So I dash into the bathroom to drain my beast and BAAAM … it’s me and Robert in this big-ass restroom with like a hundred urinals and a hundred sinks, mirrors and stalls everywhere and shit.
He’s standing there putting on his make-up, clutching this little compact. He’s all, ‘Hey mate’ and I’m like, ‘Hey, Robert.’ Feeling kinda bad cuz I busted into his tranquil pre-show zone and fucked up his chi.
Chi Cheng (Deftones) : That was harrowing. It was nerve-wracking. All the cover songs, you do them and record them, and you get feedback later. It was the most intimidating thing for Robert Smith to be sitting there. You can't tell whether he likes it. Afterward, he was so cool. It was amazing.
Tim Weber : It was well past midnight when The Cure themselves finally took to the stage, and from the first riff it was obvious that they have managed to haul their music firmly into the 21st century.
Johnny Black : The climax of the show came when The Cure took the stage to play a brief but exhilarating set, which brought the night to a perfect close.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CURE
by Johnny Black
In the recent MTV Icon show honouring The Cure, Robert Smith revealed that, “It was only when Dinosaur Jr covered Just Like Heaven that it occurred to me that we could be inspiring other people.”
By that point, though, The Cure had been going for a decade, so it was likely that aspiring young musicians would be listening to them and might feel moved to make music by their influence. To hear Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno acknowledge that, “It was listening to Robert Smith that got me interested in writing lyrics,” is perhaps not too surprising, because both bands have stylistic similarities, but to learn that Shakira has name-checked The Cure as an influence, or that members of the Polyphonic Spree count themselves as Cure fans, suggests that Smith’s influence has reached places that most pop icons cannot reach.
All of the bands who went out as part of the recent Curiosa tour – including such vibrant young artists as Interpol, The Rapture and Mogwai - were avowedly Cure fans, but it’s revealing to hear Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler admit that when they first met Smith, “we weren’t able to converse with him because we were star-struck.”
In person, Smith goes out of his way to avoid rock star behaviour or attitudes yet, for legions of passionate devotees, merely basking in his unassuming presence is overwhelming.
If the musical diversity of the artists who claim kinship with The Cure seems remarkable, it’s worth noting that there is one thing which draws them all together – passion. Artists who feel compelled to perform after hearing Robert Smith don’t necessarily adopt a Cure-like sound, or write Cure-style lyrics, but they are virtually without exception artists for whom their music is their very raison d’etre.
Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example, stand as two of the most uncompromising bands of the 90s. No Cure influence is immediately evident from a casual listen to their music, but both have acknowledged it. “The music on Californication,” says Chili’s guitarist John Frusciante, “a lot of it was really influenced by The Cure, and no critic has ever picked up on that.”
At first glance, to have influenced such a wide range of artists seems extraordinary but one clue lies in Chester Benington of Linkin Park’s observation that, “They’re one of the most important bands because they changed the way people think about music.”
Very few artists, no matter how many CDs they sell, can change the way people think. Michael Jackson inspired countless imitators who sing and dance in a style almost identical to him. The Rolling Stones inspired a thousand bands to get up and bash out three chord rock’n’roll roll riffs for the hell of it. Only a handful of artists – Bob Dylan and The Beatles among them – can claim to have changed how people thought.
The reason why is self-evident. Such artists are originals. They are innovators. What they inspire in other artists is not a desire to copy them, but a determination to listen to their own hearts and follow their own paths. As Alicia Keys, another unlikely Cure fan, has said, “I love groups that say things in ways that are different – and that’s what I love about The Cure.”
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