Marathon set is perfect cure

Much of The Cure's recent output has taken the form of greatest hits-type material and their live appearances are now limited to special events such as this concert for the Teenage Cancer Trust, their only gig until after the summer.

With this seemingly in mind, they were determined to make it count, delivering a fan's dream: an amazingly thorough tour through their mammoth back catalogue, which ran to 37 songs over the best part of three hours.

There was little banter or display of emotion during the first few numbers, which included Eighties tracks such as Fascination Street and The Blood, containing the familiar gothic elements of trilling, echoey lead guitar, minor keys and sinister lyrics.

Smith was in fine voice, with his range, purity and curiously pained vocal quality apparently unaffected by the ravages of the past 25 years. The rest of the band were also on point, faultlessly recreating the barrage of sound that characterises so much of their older material.

It's an occasionally dirge-like sound that has not aged well, a problem not helped by the cruel fact that a well-built 45-year-old singing about cutting himself with razor blades provokes far less pathos than an emaciated twentysomething singing about the same thing. This fact marred the more miserable tracks such as Shake Dog Shake.

It was only during the bigger, brighter songs like In Between Days that Smith came out of his shell and engaged with the crowd.

But Cure fans didn't come to see jollity or intimacy. They wanted Robert Smith in his dysfunctional glory, and they got it.

The Cure