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.
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…