This double live album from lovable miserablist Robert Smith and his band was recorded at last year's Bestival, an annual family-focused music festival on the Isle of Wight. Though the band's 1991 live album Entreat is shorter and focused solely on the Disintegration era, it is a more impressive and real impression of what the Cure can be like live. Because while Bestival is good, sometimes it's a little like Bob and the boys are going through the motions and the result is a lovely yet light-sounding Cure show. So songs like the punk pulse of Primary and unhinged holler of Grinding Halt don't quite have the intensity they deserve. But hey, it was a family show after all.
And then again, with a set list of 36 tracks, a fitting and fiery finale of 10:15 Saturday Night and Killing Another, and the way they move so effortlessly from the churning darkness of One Hundred Years and primal lurch of Shake Dog Shake into the tickle and bounce of songs like Caterpillar, Lovecats, and Why Can't I Be You?, it's hard to complain.
And the 50,000 punters on the Isle of Wight that night certainly weren't.
Stars: 3.5/5
-TimeOut
