Tim Henman ruined Glasto

I didn't hold out much hope for the  Glastonbury line-up this year and ended up not watching very much of the coverage, though I was looking forward to two of the three headliners, The Killers and The Cure, Stormzy not being my bag. Both me and Mrs H have liked The Killers since they broke through to mainstream attention with their album Day and Age - we've spent many hours in the car listening to its high quality, catchy songs. And I've liked The Cure since being fascinated by their first single on a compilation album I had. The song was called Killing An Arab. Eh? - but I was hooked by their first hit single, A Forest, which I heard on the John Peel show circa 1980. We missed seeing The Killers before they became a stadium band (we don't do stadium gigs, finding it rather like watching on TV but with the TV turned up full at the other end of the house) but we finally caught up with Robert Smith and The Cure a couple of years ago. For me, a huge fan of the new wave era, Smith's catchy pop songs redolent of the Buzzcocks with a hint of Joy Division gloom are musical catnip.

I thought The Killers were hugely disappointing. Having not seen much of them playing live I found I just couldn't warm to front man Brandon Flowers. His singing wasn't bad but it just didn't sound much like the recorded version of his voice to me. His personality grated and, surprisingly, I didn't even like his glittery jacket. Mrs H pretty well summed it up when she asked why Tim Henman was attempting to sing Killers songs. I sniggered because she had a point, but once she'd said it Flowers had no chance of winning me back. I was going to label the photos below but I've forgotten which is which.......

There was also an odd throw away chorus of Human, done just on piano, before going into another song as a tease. OK they did play it in the encore, but with the Pet Shop Boys fella doing much of the singing so it sounded for all the world like a Killers tribute band making a poor fist of the song. All in all a big let down.

As for Smith, his wife (yes, I know he looks a Goth - though he denies it - and wears lipstick but he does have one and they've been together since he was 14) reportedly tells him "sing well" before gigs. She presumably feels he can play his guitar blindfolded so if he sings well it will be a good gig. He did sing well. There were no guests, no dancers, no fireworks, just the band and their songs. Exactly as I like it: I've never seen the point of a dance show on a festival stage, albeit presumably intended for the tv coverage. and guests usually take away from rather than add to the performance.

However, there is a "but". Just like when we saw them in Manchester* they didn't play The Love Cats, Mrs H's favourite - and she's by no means the only one who thinks that. That irritated us when we found out they had played it the next night at Wembley Arena, though admittedly in a longer set. Here they had a full two hours, so no excuse, Robert. The BBC said it was a "wry joke - did anyone miss it?" Well you could plainly hear many of the audience calling for it as the band left the stage. Smith, as many Glastonbury headliners are, seemed very emotional at the end of his set. Bob, the punters would have loved you even more if you'd played your best known song; it was an occasion to give them what they wanted. I know you think Love Cats  is a "sort of stupid pop song" but remember you re-formed The Cure because the stupid pop songs became hits and you found it was more fun doing that than slogging around the world in your alternative career playing guitar with Siouxsie and the Banshees (Smith had dissolved the Cure at one point reportedly under the strain of narcotics and playing his 'emotionally crushing songs' each night).

Other than that, all the hits got played. Well, I say "all", though I haven't checked whether he played every single one. The Cure never made it really big time but there were a lot of hits: 23 in the UK top 40, including Lovesong written for his wedding to Mary in 1989 - not his biggest UK hit but strangely by far his biggest US seller, reaching number 2 on the US mainstream pop chart, most of the others registering only on their alternative chart. Close To Me, Friday I'm In Love, Lullaby, The Caterpillar - all there.

On the positive side, closing with one of his earliest songs, Boys Don't Cry, was a stroke of genius. A lovely song which wasn't a hit on first release, though it eventually earned a silver disc. It would be a bit like Madonna closing her set with one of the singles she did before Holiday, or the Rolling Stones closing with I Wanna Be Your Man,  though that,of course wasn't their own composition. It showed how well Smith's music has stood the test of time. There is a smashing video with a touchingly young Smith singing the song on youtube here. Some 40 years on and now aged 60 Smith's voice hasn't changed very much.

They didn't do Killing An Arab - Smith once called a press conference to explain the song was not Islamophobic but inspired by Camus's L'Etranger. Smith recalls looking at a sea of bemused journalists' faces as he explained existentialism and Camus's philosophy of the absurd. But of course they performed A Forest  - it was brilliant and I've been humming that and Boys Don't Cry ad nauseam since. Though I have also been singing Killers songs. I just don't feel the need to see them live any more.

So the Cure were really good, but I was still left feeling a tad cheated, just as I had when I saw them live. A tease indeed.

*See The Love Cat is a Tease, post of 4 Dec 2016