February 19th, 2000. The Cure played a 1500 capacity gig in Los Angeles, a part of the intimate Bloodflowers promo run. How many other tours had these tiny warm up dates tacked onto the beginning? These small shows would never happen today - those of us who were there and around during that time keep looking back at it all, grateful.
The Cure also played Mad TV the day before. It was like rock n roll fantasy camp , as @laceyspacecake would later say about Parts of the Dream Tour. .
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I was about two weeks into full on film adventure. We got to the gig early, primed to wait for the band and see if we could get into soundcheck. Back in 1995-96, some of the die hard were spoiled by those occasions when the band waved fans into soundcheck. Did that happen on other tours? In 89 or 92? It seems like by 2004 the whole soundcheck fan thing was on total shut down.
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But on that day, some of us got in. Those who didn’t tried to listen from outside. In addition, they got to see Lol Tolhurst come to the venue. This moment was special for many reasons, which @lol.tolhurst writes graciously about in his book. The fans made him feel at home.
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I started filming inside the venue, as I was allowed to by the band as long as I focused on the fans mostly. But some big venue bouncer wasn’t having it. My heart leapt out onto the floor as he screamed at me and tried to kick me out. But I negotiated a deal to stay.
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I wish I could remember more about the actual gig. It’s surprisingly massive - how much of our lives we forget. More and more Internet really hang onto the good stuff.
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That day was definitely a good day, big bad bouncer and all. #thecure