The Cure Pull Out A Stack of Rarities at Sydney’s Disintegration Concerts

I don’t think fans of The Cure were expecting how special their Sydney Disintegration concerts were going to be. At the first show, six of the songs had never been performed and a further two hadn’t been performed since 2002.

Over time, every song from Disintegration has been performed live but b-sides from the singles from the album and a number of songs worked up for the album that didn’t make it have never been done live.

The Disintegration tracks ‘Homesick’ and ‘Untitled’ were last performed 17 years ago in 2002 in Berlin.

‘No Heart’, ‘Esten’, ‘Babble’, ‘Fear of Ghosts’, ‘Out of Mind’, ‘Delirious Night’ and ‘Pirate Ships’ had never been performed live by The Cure.

‘Babble’ had only previously been performed by The Cure tribute band theXplodingboys. Wendy Waldman, who wrote Pirate Ships, also wrote ‘Save The Best for Last’ for Vanessa Williams, ‘Oh Industry’ (from Beaches) for Bette Midler, ‘Love Hurts’ for Cher as well as songs for The Hooters, Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes, so her Cure contribution is way out of the box.

Setlists:

The Cure, Sydney Opera House 24 May 2019

Disintegration
Plainsong (from Disintegration, 1989)
Pictures of You (from Disintegration, 1989)
Closedown (from Disintegration, 1989)
Lovesong (from Disintegration, 1989)
Last Dance (from Disintegration, 1989)
Lullaby (from Disintegration, 1989)
Fascination Street (from Disintegration, 1989)
Prayers for Rain (from Disintegration, 1989)
The Same Deep Water as You (from Disintegration, 1989)
Disintegration (from Disintegration, 1989)
Homesick (from Disintegration, 1989)
Untitled (from Disintegration, 1989)

Encore:
No Heart (unused Disintegration track)
Esten (unused Disintegration track)
2 Late (b-side of Love Song)
Babble (b-side of Lullaby)
Fear of Ghosts (b-side of Love Song)
Out of Mind (b-side of Lullaby)
Delirious Night (unused Disintegration track)
Pirate Ships (Wendy Waldman cover) (unused Disintegration track)

The Cure, Sydney Opera House 25 May 2019

B-Sides
No Heart (unused Disintegration track)
Fear of Ghosts (b-side of Love Song)
Out of Mind (b-side of Lullaby)
Esten (unused Disintegration track)
2 Late (b-side of Love Song)
Babble (b-side of Lullaby)
Delirious Night(unused Disintegration track)