(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)
The Cure live at Osheaga 2013
Artist: The Cure When: August 2nd, 2013 Where: River stage, Osheaga, Jean Drapeau Park, Montreal Context: I was doing this thing in the spring and early summer this year, posting pics from some of the great sets* I caught at Montreal’s Osheaga music festival back in 2013: a sort of ten year anniversary celebration of a great weekend spent with music and friends. However, I never got around to what was possibly my favourite set of the whole weekend, something I’ve decided to remedy before this year was up.
I had seen The Cure once before back in 2000 for their Bloodflowers tour but this time, it was ultimately more satisfying because the setlist was so wonderfully mixed. The night was cool and pleasant and Robert Smith was at the top of his game, sounding as he did in his prime, but perhaps performing with more joy than he ever had back then. It was a wondrous two hour set, playing everything any fans would ever want to hear. It seemed like it could, and would, go on forever. In fact, festival organizers had to cut the sound just near the end of “Boy’s don’t cry” after the band had gone on way past curfew. Point of reference song: “Boys don’t cry”
Robert Smith from far awayReeves Gabrels and Jasson CooperRoger O’DonnellReeves Gabrels and Robert SmithRobert Smith closeup
*Past galleries from this festival weekend have included the following:
I started this series counting down my favourite albums of 2010 back around mid-May and I thought at the time that I’d be wrapping it up in three to four months. Well, here we are six months later and I’m thinking I didn’t do to0 badly, finally getting to the number one spot, which, as you can see by the title, comes courtesy of Arcade Fire.
Given the amount of backlash the group has seen of late because of the non-musical antics of frontman Win Butler, I imagine there might be those out there who might sneer at this selection at the number one spot on this list. I myself had already started losing interest in the band, what with the diminishing returns on the string of albums after this one, but the sexual misconduct allegations hitting the news last year all but turned me off. Still, when putting together this list, I revisited “The suburbs” while trying to separate artist with art and quickly found myself getting caught up in it again. It was a near perfect album and deserved all the accolades that it garnered at the time.
I had been a fan of Montreal’s Arcade Fire since the release of 2004’s “Funeral”, back when they were pretty much considered by fans, critics, and musicians alike as the world’s most exciting new band. That debut album referenced the geek rock, post punk of Talking Heads or Violent Femmes but the size of their membership and the variety of instrumentation used added volumes to enormous levels. What really stood out for me, though, was their energy. Their music was all about energy, even despite the darkness and sadness that surrounded the recording of their debut album.
Seeing them perform live in 2005 in an opening slot for U2 only added to my love for Arcade Fire. They came onstage and played to the massive audience assembled at the local hockey arena as if they were playing at the tiniest of rock venues, as if they were the headliners, not the preamble to the world’s biggest rock band. Watching the group’s seven members swap instruments between songs and soaking in the ferocity with which they attacked each number afforded a rare live experience and caught the attention and won fans out of more than a few audience members who had before that night never heard of them. I then saw them twice more on different nights and different circumstances and that passion and energy hadn’t waned in the least and the same might be said of their recordings, even in spite of the evolution of their sound. But I might be getting carried away here. Let’s get back to “The suburbs”.
According to an article published in the NME back in August 2010, frontman Win Butler said that the album “is neither a love letter to, nor an indictment of, the suburbs – it’s a letter from the suburbs.” I don’t know about the rest of you folks that live in the suburbs as I do but this album doesn’t sound a lick like my neighbourhood. It’s like they had taken their idea and their memories of what it was like to live in suburbia and pushed that feeling into a post-apocalyptic world where everything is the same: emotionless, and wasting away.
It’s a concept album, of course, I don’t think these guys know how not to make a concept album and they definitely have the concept of the concept down right. There are sixteen songs in all, each varying in length, sound, and mood but the theme remains intact. And still, each song, with the exception of the final reprise perhaps, can be pulled from the group and it easily stands on its own merits, confidently straddling the wide gorge between art and pop. Sure, the lyrics are questionable but they are thought-provoking and are earnest in their message.
I think this mastery of mood in songcraft and the palpable energy makes “The suburbs” impossible to ignore. It should go down as the earliest classic of the twenty-tens and remain firmly planted near the top of the best of lists created by many of the important taste making music writers. I’m not including myself amongst these you understand, but I am a very big fan of this album. For me, it might even be preferable to “Funeral”… But that’s a whole other discussion.
In case you haven’t listened to the whole thing already, here are my three picks for you off the album worth listening to right now:
“The suburbs”: “But by the time the first bombs fell, we were already bored.” The opening number and title track has something of a lounge singer vibe with Butler crooning in his own unique way while the drums and piano bang out a jaunty rhythm worthy of a 60s musical. It is a haunting premonition for the themes that run throughout the album and is echoed in a more deconstructed vein in the reprise that closes things out. The first time I heard this song was when I saw them live and when I posted how this was my twelfth favourite tune of 2010, I wrote about how much more boisterous it sounded than when I got my hands on the album. It’s still Win ‘telling it like it is, pointing out points of interest, recounting childhood stories, and espousing dreams in a world that appears to be without hope’.
“City with no children”: “The summer that I broke my arm, I waited for your letter. I have no feeling for you now, now that I know you better.” The lyrics sound more nostalgic than post-apocalyptic but the latter is definitely what I lean more towards with this track and that’s probably thanks to the similarity in title to a certain 2006 sci-fi flick that starred Clive Owen. It’s got an erratically driving bass line, handclaps, and a chorus melody that practically begs you to join Win and his wife, Régine Chassagne, in a harmonizing singalong, totally uplifting and totally depressing. This could very well rival the next track as my very favourite Arcade Fire song.
“Sprawl II (Mountains beyond mountains)”: This was easily one of my favourite tracks of the year and indeed, hit number two when I counted down said list a few years ago. The song features Régine stepping out of her backup vocal role to take centre stage and dancing it up. The video sees her leaving her suburban home with a pair of headphones on and suburban folk doing typically suburban things, like hanging out in lawn chairs and watering the lawn, except they’re all wearing masks, some of them faceless. And all the while, Régine just sings and dances away any fear and loathing she might have. A little bit Blondie and a little bit Björk, a cathartic climax to the album and a track that foreshadowed the change in musical aesthetic that surfaced on “Reflektor”, their subsequent album.
If you’ve stuck with me for the whole countdown, thanks for your attentions. If you missed any part of this series, here are the previous albums in this list:
Echo and the Bunnymen originally formed as the trio of Ian McCulloch, Will Sargent, and Les Pattinson in Liverpool in 1978. Drummer Pete de Freitas would eventually replace the band’s drum machine as the fourth member in 1980. It was this lineup that recorded and released the band’s first five and best-loved albums: “Crocodiles” (1980), “Heaven up here” (1981), “Porcupine” (1983), “Ocean rain” (1984), and “Echo and the Bunnymen” (1987). After McCulloch left to pursue a solo career in 1988 and de Freitas died a year later, the remaining two members carried on with new recruits and released a mostly forgettable album in 1990 before dissolving a few years later. The name and band was revived in 1997 after McCulloch and Sargent successfully worked together again as Electrafixion on one album and then, Pattinson returned to work with them.
I original got into the group with a cover. I was super haunted by their version of The Doors’ “People are strange”* that appeared on the “Lost boys” soundtrack, a film that I watched despite my parents warnings as a teen and then, watched and rewatched many times over. I came upon this very song, “Lips like sugar”, on an 80s compilation, a bunch of years later, and from there, it was an easy hop, skip, and jump to the rest of their singles.
“Lips like sugar” was originally released as the second single off Echo & the Bunnymen’s 1987, eponymously-named fifth record, the group’s most commercially successful album in North America. In fact, frontman Ian McCulloch initially disliked the song because he thought it sounded too commercial. His view towards it has softened considerably over the years, likely because he was right. Money does have a way of changing views towards the positive.
Regardless of its commercial activity, it’s a great song. Evoking fantastical imagery and that magical feeling of early love and longing, in that time when the object of your affection is near perfection. Pounding drums echoing that of a racing heartbeat, guitars jangle and ring and chirp and roll off into the distance, and all the while, McCulloch wavers between croons and howls, all bouncing and reverberating off of prison walls of his own making. This definitely wasn’t what mainstream sounded like back then, but it certainly paved the way for what was to come.
Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a
Favourite lyric: “She floats like a swan / grace on the water” It’s a great image and it so completely sets the tone and gives you a clear image of who McCulloch is pining over.
Where are they now?: Echo and the Bunnymen is still very much a going concern, though these days the only remaining original members are Ian McCulloch and Will Sargent. They last released an album of new material in 2014 (“Meteorites”) and back in 2018, released an album called “The stars, the oceans, and the moon”, which was mostly reworked versions of earlier tunes.
*This very cover of The Doors’ classic appeared at number sixty-eight on my ongoing list of 100 favourite cover songs.
For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 