As one whose real-time experience with The Cure started with Wish, I still have a number of blind spots with their discography and so coming across this article in Paste about the 35th anniversary of their 1987 concert film The Cure In Orange was quite an eye-opener, as I a) didn’t know it existed and b) that it was so good.
As they frame it:
Despite the wealth of concert material Cure fans have access to at this stage in their storied career, one film stands above the rest as a thesis statement for the band and why they remain deathless after so many years. All of their magic, of both the light and dark varieties, is on full display in Tim Pope’s The Cure In Orange, which celebrates its 35th anniversary today (Feb. 23). Filmed in August 1986 at The Cure’s run of shows at the Roman Theater of Orange in France to promote 1985’s The Head On the Door, and released only a few months before 1987’s double album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, In Orange serves as both a bookmark in and a crown jewel of the band’s career.
35 Years On, The Cure in Orange Is Still a Beacon of the Band’s Radical Vulnerability @ Paste
And yeah, it’s a remarkable film and not just because it features Robert Smith sporting a relative brush cut and playing a Telecaster. The setting in an ancient Roman theatre in the south of France indeed gives it an epic feel, the band is in absolute top form, and the set list fantastic. Plus the 4K remaster of the version that went up on YouTube last year is truly *chef’s kiss*.
