Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

The Cure: Curætion 25 + Anniversary Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 22, 2019

A cursory glance at the long discography of The Cure would seem to suggest that it took this British band at least a decade to really gain a significant foothold on the American airwaves and (perhaps more saliently) in album and/or single sales. The band’s first album, Three Imaginary Boys from 1979, frankly didn’t even set the British charts on fire, rising “only” to number 44 on the album charts, but the next several follow ups did significantly better, with at least some of the band’s work managing to get into the Top 10 of album sales. One of those albums, a 1984 opus perhaps ironically named The Top, got to number 10 itself on the British album charts, but it’s perhaps notable that it was the first album by the band to chart in the United States, crawling up to the relatively paltry position of 180. 1985 seemed to be a turning point of sorts for Robert Smith and company, resulting in their first American Gold Album for The Head on the Door, this honor despite the fact that the album’s top spot on the chart was a relatively middling number 59. 1985 also saw The Cure managing to chart for the first time on the American singles chart, with a tune called “In Between Days” which barely cracked the “Hot 100” by making position 99. While the rest of the eighties and first part of the nineties were considerably “kinder” to the band in terms of airplay and sales, it’s kind of interesting to note that The Cure still didn’t really have major success on the “mainstream” pop and rock charts in the United States, despite the fact that band did manage to claim the top spot a couple of times on the “Alternative” singles chart. All of this is to say that the two concerts included in this appealing release may not exactly provide a "greatest hits" assemblage for some listeners at least, since The Cure arguably hasn't had a slew of actual hits on this side of the pond, anyway. That said, fans of The Cure are almost sure to find this a really enjoyable "two fer" that offers the band in fine form and which also features two fairly different concerts with decidedly different presentational attributes.

Curætion 25 stems from a June 24, 2018 concert which was captured on the tenth and final night of the 25th Meltdown Festival which is, well, curated by Robert Smith at London's Royal Festival Hall. This concert is a kind of interesting "chronological" survey of The Cure's albums, with the band performing one song from each of their thirteen studio albums in order (though the disc allows you to play the set either "From There to Here" or "From Here to There", and there is a bit of a "break" for some new material, as well). Anniversary offers a somewhat more "straightforward" concert (at least in terms of the filming style) that finds the band playing to a horde of over 65,000 fans in Hyde Park on July 7, 2018.

The set lists for the concerts are as follows:

Curætion 25: From There to Here / From Here to There

• 1. Three Imaginary Boys
• 2. At Night
• 3. Other Voices
• 4. A Strange Day
• 5. Bananafishbones
• 6. A Night Like This
• 7. Like Cockatoos
• 8. Pictures of You
• 9. High
• 10. Jupiter Crash
• 11. 39
• 12. Us or Them
• 13. It's Over
• 14. It Can Never Be the Same
• 15. Step Into the Light
• 16. The Hungry Ghost
• 17. alt.end
• 18. The Last Day of Summer
• 19. Want
• 20. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
• 21. Disintegration
• 22. If only Tonight We Could Sleep
• 23. Sinking
• 24. Shake Dog Shake
• 25. One Hundred Years
• 26. Primary
• 27. A Forest
• 28. Boys Don't Cry

Anniversary: 1978-2018 Live in Hyde Park London

• 1. Plainsong
• 2. Pictures of You
• 3. High
• 4. A Night Like This
• 5. The Walk
• 6. The End of the World
• 7. Lovesong
• 8. Push
• 9. Inbetween Days
• 10. Just Like Heaven
• 11. If Only Tonight
• 12. Play for Today
• 13. A Forest
• 14. Shake Dog Shake
• 15. Burn
• 16. Fascination Street
• 17. Never Enough
• 18. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
• 19. Disintegration
• 20. Lullaby
• 21. Caterpillar
• 22. Friday I'm in Love
• 23. Close to Me
• 24. Why Can't I Be You
• 25. Boys Don't Cry
• 26. Jumping Someone Else's Train
• 27. Grinding Halt
• 28. 10:15 Saturday Night
• 29. KAA

Note: For diehard fans of The Cure, Eagle Rock is also releasing a Limited Edition for considerably more money than this release, though it includes CDs as well as a hardback book.

The Cure: Curætion 25 + Anniversary Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots 1 through 9 are from Curætion 25 . Screenshots 9 through 18 are from Anniversary.

The Cure: Curætion 25 + Anniversary is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music Group with AVC encoded 1080i transfers. Curætion 25 is in 2.22:1 and Anniversary is in 2.35:1, though as can be seen in screenshot 9, Curætion 25 also features some brief archival video that is in "old school" Academy ratio. As can perhaps be gleaned from the screenshots culled from Curætion 25 , that concert (directed by Nick Wickham) features a kaleidoscopic style that is definitely on the hallucinogenic side at times, but which also can feature some rock solid (no pun intended), razor sharp imagery, albeit tweaked at times to be (to cite one example) in black and white. There's quite surprising depth to the imagery in this concert despite some really weird effects Wickham chooses to add, and some relatively straightforward shots of the band (without any additional image bells and whistles) can impress even in pretty dark moments that lack much in the way of stage lighting. Anniversary is considerably more "traditional" in its filming style (this concert was directed by Tim Pope), though as can be seen in some of the screenshots culled from that concert, occasional flourishes are added courtesy of things like fisheye lenses. Imagery is typically very sharp in this concert, offering problem free resolution in close cropped patterns like the "grills" on some speakers and/or amps or even the crosshatched backdrop behind the band. There are occasional very brief but noticeable combing artifacts on some fast motion like some of the drumming, but otherwise this is a really great looking presentation of two vastly different concerts.

The Cure: Curætion 25 + Anniversary Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both concerts in this set feature either DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or LPCM 2.0 tracks. You can't really go wrong with either of these, as both feature excellent fidelity and pretty boisterous amplitude (some of the verbiage on the insert encourages people to turn these up). The surround tracks probably expectedly capture more of the ambience of both venues, with audience noise spilling into the side and rear channels. The band is mixed well in both concerts, with vocals typically able to rise above both massed instruments and at times pretty raucous responses from the audience.

The Cure: Curætion 25 + Anniversary Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no on disc supplements on either of the two Blu-ray discs included with this release. This is housed in a larger Digibook kind of casing that measures approximately 7 1/2" long by 5 1/2" wide by about 1/2" thick. There are a few glossy pages inside the case that feature a bit of writing and stills of the band.

The Cure: Curætion 25 + Anniversary Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My wife was a news anchor at some major market radio stations when The Cure finally broke through on American radio, and she is frankly probably more of a fan of the band than I am. That may then weirdly give credence to the fact that I totally enjoyed both of these concerts, both from a musical perspective but also due to the presentational differences that directors Nick Wickham and Tim Pope bring to their efforts. I can't imagine and fan of The Cure not enjoying this release at least as much if not more than I did. Highly recommended.