Review: The Cure kick off jam-packed summer at Blackweir with sweltering success

Amelia Jones  

With temperatures topping 30°C, you might think The Cure fans would ditch the full make-up and Robert Smith-esque wigs for the band’s highly anticipated Cardiff date. You would be very wrong.

As we queued beneath the blazing sun, a rather sweaty-looking man beside me glanced over at one of the wig-wearers and said: “That’s commitment. I’m surprised that wig hasn’t caught fire yet.”

The gig sparked plenty of debate on social media, with some arguing it should not go ahead due to the extreme heat warning. Others sold their tickets beforehand, deciding it was simply too hot for them.

As we stood in that queue: faces melting, handheld fans emblazoned with the word “slay” working overtime, and people pouring water over themselves like extras in a low-budget Baywatch remake, I did start to question whether I’d made the right decision bagging tickets off my mum’s friend.

I’d love to say I sailed through the evening with effortless, heat-defying grace. The reality was that surviving the concert required a strategy.

The venue’s additional shaded areas had already been claimed by people sitting in neat rows in typical British fashion, looking as though they were waiting for the start of a primary school sports day. Others had made the bar their sanctuary, combining shade with the obvious bonus of a cold pint.

We settled instead for a brief lie-down in the shadow of a food truck whose staff seemed incapable of pronouncing anyone’s name correctly.

After hearing them pronounce “Julian” as “Juneil”, we decided it was time to abandon our patch of shade and head into the crowd, joining the die-hard fans who had been filmed running to their staked-out spots as soon as the gates opened at 5pm.

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Just when I thought it was getting too hot, all concerns were lifted as The Cure cooly sauntered onto the stage, at odds with their all-black long sleeved outfits.

Singer Robert Smith came on last, and from where I was standing it seemed his face seemed less painted than usual, but that could have just been me.

He greeted the crowd, strolling back and forth either side of the stage and then just like that, the band launched into Plainsong.

Around me, a crowd of all-ages came together in song. They swayed, sang and occasionally fanned themselves with whatever they could get their hands on. Despite the heat, nobody seemed willing to surrender their spot.

Robert Smith barely needed to say much. Every time the opening notes of a favourite song appeared, thousands of voices took over, and he even threw in some attempts at the Welsh language.

At one point he laughed and said: “Of all the languages, I should have learned Welsh, because I married into a Welsh family. Although it’s probably best I don’t know what they’re saying.”

Pictures of You drew one of the loudest singalongs of the night, while Just Like Heaven had strangers throwing their arms around each other as though they’d known one another for years.

As they masterfully sailed through their summery setlist, I hardly noticed the sun setting and the moon appearing to the left of the stage. The relentless heat eased (albeit slightly), and Blackweir Fields suddenly felt a lot less like an endurance challenge.

By the encore, the crowd had found a second wind. Hot Hot Hot!!! felt like a knowing joke from the band, prompting laughter from fans who had spent the day slowly baking in the Welsh sunshine.

When the opening riff of Friday I’m In Love arrived, any remaining exhaustion disappeared completely.

As Boys Don’t Cry brought the night to a close, I realised the heat would probably be one of the things people remembered about this gig. But it wouldn’t be the first thing.

Robert Smith took one final lap of the stage, waving to the crowd as if personally thanking each of us for enduring the heatwave.

As he finally headed off, a towel came flying at him from backstage. It was the first moment all evening that he seemed human. After two-and-a-half hours on stage in black, he’d somehow looked far more heat-resistant than the rest of us.

With their immortal lyrics providing the soundtrack to so many of our lives, the night proved we were in the presence of living greats in all their human fragility.