Thursday, February 6, 2014

Is Trilogy 3 with the b-sides doable?

Some say there's no way The Cure could do a 'Reflections' style show (3 albums & b-sides) for the new Trilogy shows because it would be too long. Guillaume crunched the numbers, and ...

Doable! Actually shorter than some recent shows.
(Thanks @guillaume_g_z)

70 comments:

  1. I hope there will be b-sides!!!! I want A Chain of Flowers, A Japanese Dream, The Exploding Boy and Throw Your Foot!

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  2. Breathe, Sugar Girl, The Exploding Boy, and A Few Hours After This are my favorites. Hopefully they'll film and release, as shows are limited again.

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    1. The Exploding Boy and A Few Hours After This are stupendous. There's some crazy musical genius going on in those two songs. It doesn't hurt that their production was sublime.

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  3. I waiting to hear the icing sugar....

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  4. A cure show without encore is not a cure show...

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  5. A cure show without encore is not a cure show...

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  6. OMG, I never thought about the b-sides! Live Exploding Boy and A Few Hours After This??? *gasps*

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  7. The b-sides from The Head On The Door and Kiss Me would be so great to hear live. New Day might be interesting though! Wonder if they will unveil anymore tracks from this trilogy played at the upcoming RAH shows.

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  8. Add 20 minutes onto that as they have 10 minute breaks between albums.

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  9. I watched them do 4 hours and 19 minutes in Mexico. They can handle this... provided they eat a proper breakfast. Jeff L.

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  10. Yes - New Day!!!! Would love to hear it live!

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  11. The Cure have played ca 50 songs before, here is my 'dream' setlist ;

    'The Top'

    Shake Dog Shake
    Birdmad Girl
    Wailing Wall
    Give Me It (Pearl On Saxophone)
    Dressing Up
    The Caterpillar
    Piggy In The Mirror
    The Empty World
    Bananafishbones
    The Top/Forever '84 Version

    'The Head On The Door'

    * Relax Intro
    In Between Days
    Kyoto Song
    The Blood
    Six Different Ways
    Push
    Baby Screams
    Close To Me
    A Night Like This
    Screw
    Sinking

    'KM KM KM'

    * Eyemou Intro
    The Kiss
    Catch
    Torture
    If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
    Why Can't I Be You ?
    How Beautiful You Are...
    The Snake Pit
    Hey You ! ! !
    Just Like Heaven
    All I Want
    Hot Hot Hot ! ! !
    One More Time
    Like Cockatoos
    Icing Sugar ( Pearl On Saxophone )
    The Perfect Girl
    A Thousand Hours
    Shiver And Shake
    Fight

    Encore 1

    Happy The Man
    Throw Your Foot
    New Day
    The Exploding Boy
    A Few Hours After This…
    A Man Inside My Mouth
    Stop Dead

    Encore 2

    A Japanese Dream (12'' Version)
    Breathe
    A Chain Of Flowers
    Snow In Summer
    To The Sky

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    1. I would say Pearl on saxophone also on A night like this ;-)

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    2. Aaaaaahhhhhh all sooooooooo wonderful!!!!

      But I think no beer break for Robert inbetween songs!!!!! ;0)

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    3. Saxophone on A night like this...never is going to happen!....I hope I'm wrong though

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    4. Well you need it for Icing Sugar & Give Me It (not to mention Exploding Boy) too

      So why not employ a few more horns for Why Can't I Be You and do the single version of Close to Me?

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  12. If they play SiS, I will eat my hat; if they play TtS, I will eat my shoe.

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  13. If I get to hear The Top and Like Cockatoos in one show together, I can already die happily. I do so hope they will perform somewhere near to me.

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  14. I got 3 hours and 16 minutes, 3 hours 21 minutes if you add To The Sky. This would easily turn into a 4 hour show once you add the breaks between sets. Don't forget the gaps between songs when they switch guitars and stuff. The Cure are usually pretty quick about this, but those seconds can really add up and will likely add 15 minutes to the overall show time. I hope they do it!

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  16. Start the show at 7, should end by 11. Sounds good, maybe have an intro band for 30 minutes from 6-6:30 for those loyal enough to show up to the venues early.

    Just hope they have a lot of dates. I doubt they'd do that many, I can imagine if they do North America maybe a few more cities than Reflections but no more than 10, hope I'm wrong!

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    1. Toronto would be nice, but I see the band doing the same thing that they did with the 'Reflections' shows - one or two in London, three in LA, and three in NYC. Of course Robert may surprise us.

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  17. (Same poster as above)
    Also, you'd think the band wouldn't end the show on Sugar Girl or To the Sky, I wonder if they'd add a song or two from Disintegration for kicks, like how Reflections added The Hanging Garden, Let's Go to Bed, etc...

    I'd see doing a final encore with Disintegration, or even "Hello I Love You"

    Then again, maybe they'd just skip the b-sides altogether :/

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    1. I guess they'll just have to play all the b sides after THOTD, but before KMx3. :)

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    2. If they were to add any one Disintegration-era song to the setlist, it would have to be Fear of Ghosts. Such a shame they didn't play any B-sides during the first Trilogy shows.

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  18. They didn't want to stop on Coachella 2009 after 3 hours and electricity power was shut down to stop them so don't tell that 3 hours too long for The Cure! :)

    http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2009/04/20/the-cure-coachella-setlist-curfew-power-plug-pulled/

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  19. Reflections on 2nd night at NYC they played 48 songs... so completily doable!!!

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    1. And 49 the very next night. And 50 songs in 4 + hours at the Mexico City show last year, and LatAm shows that averaged 3 hours & 20 minutes or so. Totally doable.

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    2. Sorry, 48 on Night 3, not 49.

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  20. I hope The Cure come to Scotland for a change, I've spent so much money over the years travelling to England to see them. The new trilogy shows would be a good opportunity for them to do it! On another note, not that the shows would need them, but some b-sides from 83 and 89 would be nice bonuses if they felt the need to stretch it out even more.

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  21. Obviously it wouldn't make any difference to the length of the show but how about the idea of playing the b-sides after they have performed each album instead of saving them all till the end?

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  22. They should split the event.
    My suggestion for a typical Cure-Trilogy3-Weekened:

    Friday: Top+THOTD, Encores: JW and B-sides
    Saturday: KM+B-sides, Encores: B-Sides of Disintegration and ...of cause To The Sky

    They should play that at lesat 10 times all around the world.

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    1. The Mission did something similar of your suggestion. The played for 3 days, one entire album with their B sides on each day.

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    2. That'd lose the momentum of the gig and cost too much for the punter. Just play the best B sides.

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  23. I wish that THE CURE will offer us, the fans, to decide what we want to listen during the tours. I guess we all agree we want B sides!!!. We should be able to go to their site and vote for the songs we'd love for them to play live.

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  24. There is a big, big difference between the 'Reflections' shows and this tour. First, those albums were all shorter:
    TIM: 33 mins
    17 Seconds: 35 mins
    Faith: 36 mins.

    The Top and HOTD are 40 mins and 37 mins... but the juggernaut is KMKMKM clocking in at 74 minutes. So it's really like they are playing FOUR full albums timewise.

    In addition all the bsides from that era are longer, more complicated songs than the 'Reflections' tour, I mean two were short instrumentals (Descent, Another Journey)...

    Yes, it could be done, they could break it up into a few encore sets... but remember they will be coming off playing for 75 minutes for KMKMKM.

    What I think would work is to alternate the bsides each night they are in the same city. For example, if there are two shows in NYC:

    Night 1:
    The Top/HOTD bs

    Night 2:
    KMKMKM bs

    or something like that. 50 songs in Mexico City was a one time deal for the last show. They can't do that a few nights in a row.

    Now, the other big question, is will RS want to go back and cover the 1983 bsides? Lament, Upstairs Room, Mr Pink Eyes, etc... will he want to complete it?

    Going to be interesting to see how they pull this off.

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    1. Good analysis.

      Nobody likes my idea of the next Reflections tour being: Pornography, Japanese Whispers and The Top plus associated material.

      Then the next tour could be THOTD and KMKMKM, which, like you say, is really like 3 albums. And it'd also make it easier for them to include things like To The Sky, Half An Octopuss, etc.

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  25. I'd be interested to see if or how they change the arrangements for Breathe and Sugar Girl, as those don't have any guitars in them.

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    1. A Few Hours After This, as well.

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    2. That reminds me of what they did when they played 'There Is No If...' during the Dream Tour.

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    3. Which reminds me of how Porl used to play whatever instrument a song needed, but when he came back for his third stint he would only play guitar. Perry did the same: he would play guitar if needed or keyboards as needed, but when Roger rejoined Perry would only play guitar even if the song called for two keyboards. The Cure is forgetting its multi-instrumentalists.

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    4. Christian, that's not true. The first time that I saw The Cure was in Toronto during the Dream Tour, and Perry went to a second keyboard when they played 'Trust' during the first encore.

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    5. Yes, I was waiting for someone to bring up that case. Shortly before I saw them in 1992 they were in the middle of the Wish Tour and were being interviewed on KROQ a day or two before they played at the Rose Bowl. I believe that up to that point in time that they had not played Trust on the tour. But a caller on the radio show asked if they could play it for her. Robert responded affirmatively, or at least that he would try (the point being he was very nice to the caller). I wasn't sure if they would actually do it, but come concert time they did indeed play it and Perry played the keyboard he was using for about half of the songs but Porl took a break from his guitar for that one song and went to the side of the stage to play a second keyboard. So, yes, there is that Trust issue. But it's not the same as when Perry or Porl would play guitar and keyboard roughly half a show each. Now things are slightly stunted because Reeves only plays guitar and Roger only plays keyboard (except for some instances of simple hand-held percussion here and there). Still, I like seeing different approaches like that and seeing how it affects how different songs are played. So I don't mind lineup changes. I just don't like people forgetting that a certain band member can play a certain instrument. I love a guitar-heavy Cure, but on Porl's third stint it didn't make sense for him to play the keyboard lines for songs such as A Forest, Play For Today and Inbetween Days on the guitar. Oh well.

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  28. I don't think they'd go for all of the b-sides but surely some of them and few singles and/or 'highlight´ tracks like they did for the previous trilogies.

    Anyway news are fantastic. The Cure were about to stop after the Tempodrom shows. Who could have figured out that the 12 following years would bring so many diamonds : 3 and soon 4 LPs (even if underrated), amazing shows and tours with different formulaes, awards and special tv shows, sometime unexpected but vibrant collaborations live and on records... In 2002 I would have signed immediatly for such a decade...

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  29. I actually like what Metallica is up for this summer tour, 'By Request Summer Tour' , the fans who bought ticket for the show, gets a code you can wote for the entire Metallica catalogue of songs, b sides too, the top 17 songs are going to be played, one new song and the band have 2 songs they play ( sadly for
    Metallica fans they always plays around 20 songs) we cure fans are usually more lucky :-)
    But i think its a brilliant ide, and the setlist will change for every new town they play !

    http://metallicabyrequest.com

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  30. Just a question for Craig please if you are so kind to answer :) I read that The Cure says "a world tour" for the trilogy shows so it means that for example if I live in Spain they will play in Madrid and Barcelona as always do?I mean it would be a regular tour but with trilogy set?
    that's what I figured out reading what The Cure said...
    Can anyone tell me if it's gonna be like that please?
    Thank you very much everybody

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    1. I don't think it will be a "World Tour". Robert has already said they'll never do a massive tour like that again.

      What the PR said was "Around the world", meaning the shows wouldn't just be confined to one area. Like Reflections was performed in Australia, the UK, and the US, but Trilogy was only in Germany.

      No one knows how many countries.cities they'll bring it to. And we really don't even know if they'll actually happen. A vague outline in a press release is a lot different than Robert posting definitive info on the official site.

      I take that press release as a sort of general outline for this year, but nothing set in stone.

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    2. 'we really don't even know if they'll actually happen' Craig that's going to send people into a meltdown and then the grassy knoll conspiracy theorists will be out again! Any ideas when any of the details on the press release might be officially confirmed on the main site or by Robert himself?

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    3. Just saying that until those shows are officially announced, with actual dates, ticket info, etc., it's just a general outline of their plans for 2014.

      Even then, plans can change. Late 2014 could easily slip to Spring 2015. Still way too early to do anything but speculate on what might happen. None of us knows anything other than what Robert told fans in Hawaii last year, and now what the PR says.

      No need for conspiracy theories. We all know how many things have been announced or planned, and then things change. But for now, we are only a few steps above wishful thinking.

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    4. Trilogy was in 2 countries, Germany & Belgium.

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    5. Sorry. Forgot about the warm up show in Belgium.

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  31. Yes, of course. Think Cure fans have all probably got used to Robert changing his mind about things over the years! Still, better to be a few steps above wishful thinking than a few steps below :)

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  32. I'm still waiting for "The Reflection" & "LaTam" on DVD...It would be awesome if they included some extras like: Stop Dead, Birdmad Girl, Give me it, The Top & BURN!....and we forgot that Robert promised the second part of the book "Ten Imaginary Years"...THE CURE NEEDS TO RELEASE A LOT OF MORE STUFF FOR US....PLEASE!!!!

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    1. Also North American and European Dream Tour 2cd sets, among other things. :)

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  33. thank you for the information Craig: I thought all these thing come from a Cure source not from the press.
    so I forget about everything I read the other day and I still think that the cure is not going to release anything but to say goodbye...I think at the moment they themselves just want to be a lengendary band who headline the most important festivals in the world.
    Easy money for Robert.Not a bad a thing I hope this summer play festivals in Europe then...

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  35. i'm losing it. you guys are the best. and i'm so looking forward to whatever they decide to do because with these three albums everything will be absolute vertex! xx

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