While I am still processing memories from those wonderful European concerts of last autumn, The Cure already have new tour dates in North America on the horizon. So, maybe time for a look back on that special Cure night at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on 25 November 2022.
When the ‘Cure Tour Euro 22’ was announced in December 2021, it was far from certain if it could go ahead. Due to the pandemic, bands constantly had to reschedule or cancel concerts. The Cure too had challenges in the planning of this tour. In December 2022, just before the final date of the tour, an interesting article about these challenges appeared in IQ, the news platform for the live music business. It features interviews with Cure UK booking agent Martin Hopewell, his team and several European promoters. Apparently, at one point they had planned six different time schedules, routes and associated venues as options. Among them there was an outdoor variant in the summer of 2022. It would pass beautiful parks, lakes, stadiums and castles, in case there still would be indoor restrictions.
Rumours were already circulating that The Cure would be touring Europe in the autumn of 2022. Dates in Paris and Germany leaked out. On Monday 6 December 2021 exactly at 12 noon (CET), the band 
Recently, Time Out published a 
Countdown was a weekly pop music show from the Veronica broadcasting association. It was one of the two big music programs on Dutch national TV, Toppop from broadcasting association Avro being the other. Countdown ran from the end of the 70s until the beginning of the 90s. While Toppop was more dominant in the 70s, Countdown probably was the most popular music TV show in Holland during the 80s.
Probably the most exceptional tour The Cure did in the Netherlands, if not ever, is the Circus Tour 1981. Exclusively for the Dutch leg of the Picture Tour promoting the Faith album, The Cure chose a radical alternative to clubs or other concert venues. The band travelled zig-zag through the Netherlands performing their show under a circus tent with a capacity of about 2.000 people. During ten days the tent was being broken down after each gig, driven by trucks to the next town at night and then built up again to be in time for the show the following evening. There has been quite some (local) media attention for this short tour. I thought it would be nice to gather this information to create a sort of tour diary. Below is an attempt to do this. Of course I’m happy to add things if you have more stories, memories, pictures, clippings, anything to share…
Today The Cure announced a 30-date tour across Europe in the Autumn of 2016, their first major European tour since 2008. They will also be playing in the Netherlands on November 13th. The concert will take place at the rather new 17.000 capacity venue the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, which will be a first for The Cure. They will be breaking with the tradition of playing at the Rotterdam Ahoy’ Sportpaleis, which The Cure visited 8 times since 1985. The last time they played in Amsterdam was in 1984.
Little is known about The Cure’s performance at the legendary and most beautiful venue of the Netherlands: Paradiso in Amsterdam. Of the many shows The Cure have done in Holland, they only have played one time at the Paradiso, which was on 23 May 1980. It was the fourth concert of their 6-date May tour across the Netherlands promoting the new album Seventeen Seconds (they would return a couple of times to Holland later that year). Support act on this tour were Fiction label mates 
The Cure played four times in the Netherlands during The Top Tour in 1984. Three shows in May: on 30 May 1984 at an ‘Eindexamen’ Festival (celebrating high school graduation), held at the Maaspoort in Den Bosch and two concerts the next day at the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht. Here they played two shows on one day, at 4:30 pm and at 10 pm. At the end of August (30th) The Cure returned to Holland for a one-off date at the Jaap Edenhal in Amsterdam.