{"id":556658,"date":"2026-06-27T08:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T08:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/556658\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T08:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T08:24:12","slug":"the-cure-at-marlay-park-rainswept-gloom-purveyors-shine-in-an-apocalyptic-heatwave-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/556658\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cure at Marlay Park: Rainswept gloom purveyors shine in an apocalyptic heatwave \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CureMarlay Park, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n

The Irish summer has played the ultimate trick on The Cure<\/a> by unleashing an apocalyptic heatwave as pop\u2019s ultimate chroniclers of rainswept gloom arrive in Dublin for a concert. Like speedos worn at a funeral, there is no denying the novelty of the pairing \u2013 but is it a good idea? <\/p>\n

The irony of singing about loneliness and the eternal winter of the soul while your audience basks in a mellow 22 degrees is not lost on Cure frontman Robert Smith. \u201cI hate daylight. I know the world will end without it but there\u2019s a time and a place,\u201d he says early on, projecting the mischievous aura of a beloved eccentric uncle. Later he expresses the fear that he is about to \u201cbe overcome by the ghosts of sheep\u201d \u2013 adding that there is no time to explain further.<\/p>\n

In between the daze of seeing Robert Smith singing in the sunshine, this magnificent performance is testament to The Cure\u2019s uncanny ability to connect with the angst and vulnerability we all experience growing up and which, for some, never entirely goes away. The sky\u2019s an aching blue and yet The Cure make you feel like you\u2019re a misunderstood teenager in your bedroom, taking refuge from a world that doesn\u2019t care to understand you. <\/p>\n

Much of the crowd have arrived dressed in black, the many Gen Z-ers in attendance having perhaps discovered The Cure via Smith\u2019s unlikely friendship with Olivia Rodrigo<\/a>. But regardless of sartorial preference or age there is something for Cure fans of every hue. There are hits, beloved album tracks and some of the most toweringly dark music of the past 40 years. If two hours of Smith\u2019s brilliantly catchy misery doesn\u2019t send you home in a good mood, nothing will. <\/p>\n

One surprise is the thoroughness with which the band have glossed over their 2024 masterpiece, Songs of a Lost World<\/a>. Recorded in the aftermath of the death of Smith\u2019s brother, and of his parents, the record is a stunning meditation on grief and ageing and other things you probably don\u2019t want to think about while enjoying the balmy breeze buffeting Marlay Park. <\/p>\n

So it\u2019s hits all the way \u2013 padded out with deep cuts from a catalogue that spans six decades, plus the toe-curling The Lovecats, which The Cure have rightly shunned for years. <\/p>\n

In the evening light, Smith looks as if he\u2019s crashed a party as a fancy dress version of himself. He wears smudged eyeliner and smeared lipstick, his hair a fantastically rumpled crow\u2019s nest. Behold, the eternal Curehead, standing before us in the gilded rays of that great non sequitur of the natural world: relentless Irish sunshine. <\/p>\n

Never a band to hurry, The Cure proceed through the set with grace and majesty. A graceful Pictures of You is held aloft by gauzy guitars. A keening riff drives Lovesong; Smith whips out a flute for Burn; the vast open spaces of Marlay Park are the perfect framing for Just Like Heaven \u2013 one of the best songs ever written about being young and idiotically in love. <\/p>\n

Smith returns to Dublin having briefly become an unlikely champion for the hard-pressed punter when he complained about Ticketmaster\u2019s outrageous service charges for The Cure\u2019s 2023 US tour. Good on him for speaking out but let the record show that to see The Cure at Marlay Park I had to pay \u20ac116 for a \u20ac98 resale ticket \u2013 ie a service charge mark-up of nearly 20 per cent of the original price. So well done for standing up for the concertgoing masses, Robert, but be under no illusion that more needs to be done. <\/p>\n

The Cure finish back where it started with early single Boys Don\u2019t Cry \u2013 a song about masculine fragility that dared to be vulnerable amid the fury of punk. In Marlay Park it catches light as the sun is going down \u2013 one final sigh of darkness before the night descends in earnest. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CureMarlay Park, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 The Irish summer has played the ultimate trick on The Cure by unleashing an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,229958,120019,76642],"class_list":["post-556658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-marlay-park","tag-robert-smith","tag-the-cure"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116821116123266999","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}