WHEN/WHERE
THE CURE, at the Molson Amphitheatre, June 12. Tickets: $25-$39.50. Attendance: 11,500. Rating: NN
S winging by the Molson Amphitheatre Monday to take in what’s presumed to be the last-ever local appearance by Robert Smith and the Cure — the group has been threatening implosion for years, but it now looks like they mean business — two things sprang to mind. The Cure has never been a riveting live act, and angst doesn’t translate very well at a stadium level.
Standing as if planted behind his guitar to stage right, Smith simply went through the paces, glumly churning out melancholic hit after hit like a bored dad pulling door duty on Halloween. People loved it, though, calling the group back for encores, but you couldn’t help but recall how much more exciting it was two decades ago at the god-forsaken International Centre, when the Cure’s pain was truly our own. Yawn.
