Kronomyth 14.0: SHOW ME SHOW ME SHOW ME THE MONEY. If you wished every Cure album sounded like their last, this just goes to Show you that some Wishes do come true. The band’s Highly successful (sorry, I’ll stop doing that) Wish was followed by a world tour that was chronicled on two live discs: Show and Paris. This is the story of Show, which heavily favors selections from Wish. In fact, the album is conceived as a kind of Live Wish, featuring eight of that album’s 12 tracks including a replica of its beginning (“Open,” “High”) and ending (“Cut,” “End”). Mixed in are a handful of popular Cure songs from the past including “Just Like Heaven,” “Pictures of You,” “Inbetween Days” and “Lullaby.” Although the studio was always a sympathetic canvas for The Cure, the band does a standup job of capturing the moodiness and the giddiness of their music on stage. It’s a very clean Show, with little banter in between and a carefully controlled crowd that sounds suspiciously like canned white noise. Despite the superior sound quality and steadfast loyalty to the originals, two double CDs dedicated to one tour is one two-disc set too many by my math. Fans may be tickled pink to find themselves at such a deep, full trough of The Cure and wish that every tour had such an homage; the rest of us will move quietly ahead to Wild Mood Swings and try not to stare at the wreckage that must be these releases’ inevitable collision with reality. Very few bands have attempted the double double-live release (Genesis’ The Way We Walk comes to mind), and all have battled apathy from their broader fan base as a result. Whether Show and Paris kept the flame alive a little while longer or left fans who bought them feeling burned, The Cure’s next album received a cooler reception than usual, and you can’t help but wonder if the overmarketed Wish was partly to blame.
The Songs
Disc One
1. Tape
2. Open
3. High
4. Pictures of You (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Roger O’Donnell/Lol Tolhurst)
5. Lullaby (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Roger O’Donnell/Lol Tolhurst)
6. Just Like Heaven (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Boris Williams/Lol Tolhurst)
7. Fascination Street (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Roger O’Donnell/Lol Tolhurst)
8. A Night Like This (Robert Smith)
9. Trust
Disc Two
1. Doing The Unstuck
2. The Walk (Robert Smith/Lol Tolhurst)
3. Let’s Go To Bed (Robert Smith/Lol Tolhurst)
4. Friday I’m In Love
5. Inbetween Days (Robert Smith)
6. From The Edge of The Deep Green Sea
7. Never Enough (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Boris Williams)
8. Cut
9. End
US Single CD version
1. Tape/Open
2. High
3. Pictures of You (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Roger O’Donnell/Lol Tolhurst)
4. Lullaby (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Roger O’Donnell/Lol Tolhurst)
5. Just Like Heaven (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Boris Williams/Lol Tolhurst)
6. A Night Like This (Robert Smith)
7. Trust
8. Doing The Unstuck
9. Friday I’m In Love
10. Inbetween Days (Robert Smith)
11. From The Edge of The Deep Green Sea
12. Never Enough (Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Boris Williams)
13. Cut
14. End
All songs written by Robert Smith/Simon Gallup/Porl Thompson/Boris Williams/Perry Bamonte unless noted.
The Players
Perry Bamonte (guitars and keyboards), Simon Gallup (basses), Robert Smith (voices and guitars), Porl Thompson (guitars and keyboards) and Boris Williams (drums). Mixed by Bryan “Chuck” New and Robert Smith.
The Plastic
Recorded live in 1992 at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan and released on 2LP, 2CD and cassette on September 13, 1993 in the UK and Germany (Fiction, FIXH-25/519951) and on 2LP, CD and cassette on September 21, 1993 in the US (Elektra, 61551); reached #29 on the UK charts and #42 on the US charts.
