The Cure: Shows Of A Lost World tour
Wells Fargo Center - Philadelphia, PA
For many years, The Cure have been at the top of my bucket list of bands that I wanted to see live in concert. They haven't performed in Philadelphia since they played at the Spectrum over 15 years ago. I was in college with very limited funds at the time, so I wasn't able to see them. That feels like a lifetime ago at this point. At the time, I figured that I'd be able to catch them next time they came to town, and next time finally came around last night at the venue that replaced the Spectrum.
Each stop on the Shows Of A Lost World tour has its own poster. The poster for our show was designed by Matthew Jacobson in the style of the Rocky poster, and it is absolutely perfect.
Getting tickets to this show was a bit challenging. The band was hell bent on stopping ticket scalpers from buying up the seats and price gouging the fans, so you had to enter a "verified fan" lottery and have your name picked just to have the opportunity to buy tickets. They also took extra measures to prevent the tickets from this tour from being resold by anybody (including holding back on the delivery of the tickets until 72 hours before the show).
My name wasn't picked in the first round, but I was put on a waiting list of fans who would have an opportunity to buy whatever was left over after the fans who won the lottery had purchased theirs. As it turned out, the best tickets that were available were in the nosebleed seats - the second to last row in the entire venue. Just to put this in context, there was a kid sitting in the row in front of us who couldn't have been more than 12 years old who was afraid of heights and had a full on panic attack when he and his family got to their seats. One of his relatives had to take him back to the concourse before the opening act took the stage, and we didn't see him for the rest of the show.
We settled into our seats with plenty of time before the start of the opening act, so we naturally took a bunch of selfies and pictures of the venue. The banners from the Philadelphia 76ers championship seasons, including their most recent NBA Championship and the only one to happen in my lifetime, the 1982-83 season.
The opening act was a band from Scotland called The Twilight Sad. Their first album came out in 2007 and they've released five studio albums in all, but this was the first time that I've heard them. They're pretty great! I'm going to have to dig back into their catalog and hear more of what I've been missing.
The Cure took the stage at quarter to nine and performed 29 songs over nearly two and a half hours. They were absolutely incredible, but I'm running short of time as I write this, so I'll update this paragraph later on this week.
Each stop on the Shows Of A Lost World tour has its own poster. The poster for our show was designed by Matthew Jacobson in the style of the Rocky poster, and it is absolutely perfect.
Getting tickets to this show was a bit challenging. The band was hell bent on stopping ticket scalpers from buying up the seats and price gouging the fans, so you had to enter a "verified fan" lottery and have your name picked just to have the opportunity to buy tickets. They also took extra measures to prevent the tickets from this tour from being resold by anybody (including holding back on the delivery of the tickets until 72 hours before the show).
I understand why they came up with this policy, but I'm not convinced that it didn't do more harm than good. For as much as I dislike ticket scalpers and the astronomical fees that they charge, they at least make tickets available without forcing me to take a day off work, drive to Philadelphia, and stand in line at the venue for hours like fans had to do in the 80's and 90's. They charge a premium, but it's usually no more than I would have missed out on for taking the day off work, not to mention gas to the venue and back, plus the time it would take me to stand around waiting and hoping that decent seats would still be available by the time I got to the box office.
My name wasn't picked in the first round, but I was put on a waiting list of fans who would have an opportunity to buy whatever was left over after the fans who won the lottery had purchased theirs. As it turned out, the best tickets that were available were in the nosebleed seats - the second to last row in the entire venue. Just to put this in context, there was a kid sitting in the row in front of us who couldn't have been more than 12 years old who was afraid of heights and had a full on panic attack when he and his family got to their seats. One of his relatives had to take him back to the concourse before the opening act took the stage, and we didn't see him for the rest of the show.
I don't mind sitting in the cheap seats, especially if they're in the center like our seats were, but these tickets were certainly not cheap. In fact, they were significantly more expensive than tickets that I had bought off of scalpers to see other bands on my bucket list over the past ten years. So, long story short, ticket selling policies that may seem fan-friendly on the surface aren't necessarily all that they're cracked up to be.
We settled into our seats with plenty of time before the start of the opening act, so we naturally took a bunch of selfies and pictures of the venue. The banners from the Philadelphia 76ers championship seasons, including their most recent NBA Championship and the only one to happen in my lifetime, the 1982-83 season.
The opening act was a band from Scotland called The Twilight Sad. Their first album came out in 2007 and they've released five studio albums in all, but this was the first time that I've heard them. They're pretty great! I'm going to have to dig back into their catalog and hear more of what I've been missing.
Here are the setlists for The Twilight Sad and The Cure:
