Live Shots

The Cure

Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, The Woodlands, TX, May 24

Scoff if you must, but there's really not that much distance between today's teen faves and bedroom pinups of yore like the Cure -- though it's doubtful that the Backstreet Boys would ever preface a concert with Samuel Barber's heart-rending "Adagio for Strings." Going on 15 years since Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me let the constricted, Bronté-loving youth of Anywhere, U.S.A., in on what college-radio geeks and UK cape-wearers had already known for almost a decade, Robert Smith and his love cats brought their Dreamtour to this pine-shrouded Houston suburb with nary a sign of disintegration in sight. It helps that their latest (rumored to be last) album Bloodflowers is a gorgeously dense wash of stately regret and rancorous dissolution, and doing quite well on the CMJ charts for a band twice the age of Modest Mouse or Travis, but let's not kid around -- the 13,000 or so assembled at the Pavilion wanted to hear "Just Like Heaven," and about two hours and 45 minutes into the show, they got their wish. If it took until that third encore for the hardcore nostalgists to get their rocks off -- the miniset also included "Play for Today," "A Forest," and "Faith" -- what came before was hardly lacking in vintage Cureisms. Opener "Out of This World" skated along on drummer Jason Cooper's trancey skinwork, the flame-kissed elegy "Watching Me Fall" was a perfect backdrop as night descended upon the sylvan hillside, and bassist Simon Gallup's "Fascination Street" line was heavier than a Rilke poem. Seething rockers like "Shake Dog Shake," "100 Years," and the new "Maybe Someday" kept the atmosphere charged with emotional electricity; the glorious "In Between Days" was a surprise sugar rush amid all the gloom and doom. As an admitted latecomer to serious Cure fandom, I didn't recognize half the songs and doubt they have another album as start-to-finish captivating as Bloodflowers. Still, I would have given anything to have been 15, pouty, convinced no one would ever love me, and have it all make sense after making my parents drive me to the Summit for the Disintegration tour. Listening to Roger O'Donnell's lush, aching synthesizer progress through the dreamy "Plainsong" chords, I couldn't wait to tell my friends in first period about the great Cure show I saw last night. But it was 10 years too late. Boys don't cry? Then somebody please explain this apple-sized lump in my throat.