The 45th anniversary of The Cure’s legendary second concert at the Stokvishal in Arnhem seemed like a good opportunity for a blog post. This was further encouraged by the fact that a very kind gentleman – who was actually there! – mailed me some cool, atmospheric self-made photos of the night. Although this show is well known among Cure fans, I had never seen any imagery of it before. So, very special.
This concert of The Cure at the Stokvishal in Arnhem took place on Saturday 24 May 1980. One day after their show at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. That week The Cure were in the Netherlands for six concerts as part of the European tour to promote their new, second LP Seventeen Seconds, which was just released. Supporting them were Fiction label mates The Passions, who would reach the UK charts about half a year later with the wonderful single I’m In Love With A German Film Star.
stokvishal
The Stokvishal was a former factory shed belonging to W.J. Stokvis’ Royal Factory of Metal Works. A rectangular concrete hall in the centre of Arnhem, all covered in graffiti. So, originally the space was not intended and equipped to be used as a concert hall. Legend has it that the initial conditions were spartan. Behind the stage there was an area that served as a sort of ‘backstage’, but there were hardly any facilities. No water, no toilet. For that the artists had to go ‘outside’ via the emergency exit. The official capacity was about 1,200, but it regularly happened that there were a few more people in the room.
The booker of the Stokvishal, Frans de Bie, was also the booker of the Paradiso in Amsterdam at the time. It enabled him to arrange for many bands playing in Amsterdam to play in Arnhem as well, and vice versa. This earned the Stokvishal the nickname ‘Paradiso of the East’. Frans de Bie played another role in The Cure in Holland story shortly afterwards, co-organising the Circus Tour in 1981 with Dutch Cure booking agent Fred Zijlstra.
recording
Because of the good acoustics, thanks to a built-in ceiling system that dampened the reverberation, many concerts at the Stokvishal were recorded for radio. Dutch public broadcasting society VARA recorded this particular concert. Around two months later, The Cure also performed live on VARA’s TV show Pop Karavaan at the Openluchttheater in Park Berg en Bos, Apeldoorn.
The Stokvishal radio recording has made this gig a well-known Cure concert. What is different about this recording is that there is no delay (echo) on Robert’s vocals, a trademark sound of The Cure. Maybe there were sound issues that night.
Parts of the radio recording ended up on bootlegs. Most of it is on the album Live in Holland 24/5/80 and about one hour is featured on Play For Today (both with typical wrong-era cover photos). The two songs from the second encore can be found on the double LP Girls Don’t Cry.
One song from the radio recording – M – was included on the bonus disc of the official reissue of Seventeen Seconds in 2005 (2CD deluxe edition).
set
As for the set, alongside songs from their debut LP Three Imaginary Boys and the first three singles, The Cure performed their brand new album Seventeen Seconds almost in its entirety. A brief improvisation of Matthieu Hartley’s keyboard instrumental The Final Sound at the beginning led into album opener A Reflection. Only Secrets was omitted, which the band had dropped from the setlist after their short tour in the United States the previous month.
From the recording alone you can tell that The Cure gave a superb and powerful performance. The spark obviously struck the audience. The Cure were called back no less than three times for an encore, which was not standard on this tour.
Possibly thanks to this enthusiastic response, Arnhem has the premiere of the first known live rendition of the experimental Three, which was played as the first song of the third encore. While The Cure may have tried this song earlier that week, this is the first ever (recorded) live version, as far as we know. Three would later evolve into an improvised live song known as Forever. In Arnhem, the band stayed relatively close to the version on Seventeen Seconds. This album version contains obscure spoken-word extracts from Kafka’s short story ‘Description of a Struggle’. However, in Arnhem, Robert seemed to be making up lyrics on the spot: ‘(…) Oh my God, I must go home — oh darling, where did you get this recipe? (…)’.
An extended version of the title track of Seventeen Seconds also featured some improvised additional lyrics: ‘You’re so much taller than me, I walk by your side, You’re so deeply entrenched (?), And I owe so much to you’.
After playing A Forest for the second time with restarting drums in an extra-long outro, Robert said at the end of the show: ‘That’s all, good night, thank you very much… we like Arnhem!’
extra – arnhem 1979
Less than six months earlier, The Cure played for the first time at the Stokvishal in Arnhem, on 13 December 1979. Marcel Stol, who was one of the people behind the punk fanzine Shock at the time, attended the concert. He and a few others interviewed Robert Smith and wrote a piece for Shock, which you can read back (in Dutch) on the amazing Bacteria archive. In good punk tradition, it is a frank and funny interview and also features photos from the night.
Recently, Marcel Stol, together with Henk Wentink, wrote and compiled the excellent book ‘Goudvishal: DIY or Die! / Punk in Arnhem 1977–1990’ (2022). Highly recommended if you are interested in punk and its history. It also contains amazing photos of Siouxsie & the Banshees at the Stokvishal on 11 October 1980. About The Cure’s first concert in Arnhem and his encounter with Robert, Marcel writes in this book:
I remember seeing The Cure at the Stokvishal twice (in 1979 and 1980) and realising Arnhem is Cure Town. The reception by the audience was amazing; we interviewed the band at their first gig at the Stokvishal for our fanzine Shock. Robert Smith was a very friendly guy and all of them were really quiet people.
Many thanks to Cesar and Charlie for the photos and information!