Disintegration – Dutch release 2 May 1989

DisPosxToday exactly 25 years ago, early in the morning, I went on my bicycle to the local record shop in the village where I lived to buy the new Cure album: Disintegration. It was released just four days before the concert at the Thialf IJsstadion in Heerenveen.

The record store had its show window entirely dedicated to The Cure’s new album. Jan, the owner, always did his best to make something special out of it. This time he had draped large spider webs all over the place (with some kind of cobweb spray) and hung toy rubber spiders in it. He had also put a lot of LP sleeves in there and one cardboard poster.

When he cleaned up the show window after some time, he gave me this poster (it’s about 60×60 cm). He also gave me one giant hairy rubber spider. I threw that one on stage during Lullaby at a Cure show later that year. Sorry if I scared them.

I kept the poster, so still got some official, genuine 25 years old Disintegration shop decoration… 😉

Thanks to Jan!

Thialf Heerenveen 1989

thialfposterThe Cure at the Thialf IJsstadion in Heerenveen, on 6 May 1989, was the only Dutch date on The Prayer Tour. I think it was announced in the newspapers sometime in March 1989. Special guests were The Mission and support act Shelleyan Orphan. The latter selected by Robert Smith himself for the whole tour.

Thialf, an indoor ice stadium which had been opened in 1986, was quite an unusual venue for a pop concert. According to an interview published in music magazine Oor at the time, The Cure wanted to play at a different location than the previous ones they were booked at in the Netherlands. They weren’t happy with the last show at the Rotterdam Ahoy’ Sportpaleis on the Kissing Tour ’87. Robert said there were too many occasional visitors who spoiled the atmosphere. I don’t recall that – I thought the second date in Rotterdam ’87 was fantastic, but okay, it was the first gig I ever went to. They wanted real fans who were willing to travel to see them. Heerenveen is located in a ‘rural’ area in the North of the Netherlands and could easily be combined with two other stops on the Prayer Tour, the cities of Hamburg and Bremen in Germany. The Cure’s show at Thialf was the first ever concert there. Maybe The Mission was also on the bill to attract more people to this far away and relatively big (capacity about 18.000) venue.

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