Inge Bekkers Photography

Robert Smith at the Eindexamen Festival in Den Bosch (1984), photo by Inge Bekkers.

Inge Bekkers is a Dutch photographer and graphic artist. In the 80s, she photographed dozens of pioneering alternative and underground bands live. This year, Inge opened up her archives and started posting photos on her website. What has emerged is truly amazing. She seems to have been in the right place at the right time. The visual evidence of these legendary concerts is already great, but the composition and atmosphere of the photos make them works of art in themselves.

The biggest surprise for me are the wonderful pictures of The Cure live at the Eindexamen Festival in Den Bosch on 30 May 1984. This show is well documented in terms of sound, but I don’t remember seeing any pictures of it before. Quite unique. Inge’s website is worth an extended visit. Her photos of Siouxsie & the Banshees at the first Pandora’s Music Box Festival in Rotterdam in 1983 (with Robert Smith on guitar), are also gorgeous. And please check out the ones of Clock DVA, Dead Can Dance, Fields of the Nephilim, Front 242, The Klinik, The Mission, Skinny Puppy etc. etc. …

Utrecht 1982 – part 3

This month a new book about The Cure called ‘A Perfect Dream’ by Ian Gittins was released through publishing company Palazzo. I have not read it yet. Just browsed through it. It looks like a nice, big coffee table kind of reference book. It also contains many beautiful (sometimes full page) photos, some of which I hadn’t seen before.

On page 70 there is a great full page picture of The Cure threepiece lineup in 1982 style, posing in front of a map on the wall (snippet on the left/above). I came to look at this map. The outlines of the neighbourhoods looked so familiar. Then I recognised some details and suddenly realised this is the city map of my hometown Utrecht! 😀 On page 83 there is a smaller picture also in front of this map which must be from the same session. Judging from the clothes and the location I suppose they are from the same shoot as the famous sculpture picture, probably on the eve of The Cure’s concert at Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht on 10 May 1982. Maybe the pictures in front of the map were taken inside the Holiday Inn hotel? Picture credits: Gentlelook.