05/30/1987 - Melody Maker (UK)
Three Imaginary Weeks: The Cure in South America by Robert Smith.

Three Imaginary Weeks: The Cure in South America by Robert Smith.
Saturday March 14th 1987: Get up at 9am after four hours sleep and hallucinate bitterly as the way to Heathrow. We are all there, smiling wanly save Bill (Chris Perry, Fiction head, tour function unknown), who is as usual late. Despite this obvious attempt at burying us early, we make our flight to Madrid (dle) with a good three minutes in hand... We land in Spain at seemingly the same moment we leave London, and check into a nearby hotel to continue sleeping. What we actually end up doing is playing 'Name that tune' on Lol's nauseating new Casio synth all through the afternoon and by the time we are on 'See Emily Play' the mini bar is looking bare. We return to the airport at 8 and board the Aerolineas Argentina 747 for Rio and Buenos Aires. I grit my teeth and settle back and so it begins...

Sunday March 15th 1987: After a wonderless nine hours of drinking, talking, reading and fitful crashing-into-the-ground sleep, the plane lands in Rio. It is then cleaned, refueled, and, after a two hours delay, flown on to Buenos Aires. We land at 9am, local time, feeling less than well: it is hot here, and dreadfully sunny, and everyone is wearing shades. After being subjected to several brutally officious checks, we are led through a side door and into a waiting car: there are people everywhere, and we are followed all the way into the city by a bizarre motorcade of horn-blowing-screaming-waving cars. Buenos Aires is like the outskirts/underskirts of Mega City One, an unsettling mixture of the old and crumbling and the almost half-completed, out of which rises, suddenly, rudely and anachronistically, the enormous mirrored edifice of the Sheraton Towers - our home for the next four days. There are around 500 people milling about outside here, and as we pull up, they surge towards us: Not quite feeling up to love and conversation, we jump out and rush into the hotel, and I realize that I am feeling most peculiar... Six hours in bed does the trick, and 5pm sees Team Cure poolside and beer. Gradually feeling restored, we decide to go out and mingle. The 100 or so people still waiting around outside are a friendly bunch, if almost totally incomprehensible, the exception being the head of the until-then-unknown 'Official' Cure 'Bananafishbones Club', who is gushingly clear in a Fawlty Towers sort of way. We have our photos taken endlessly before going off for a very sedate Italian (?) meal, and everyone gets to bed by 12. A strange day...

Monday March 16th 1987: I awake from a delirious sleep at 11 and immediately put The Chieftons on. The curtains are opened and closed at 12: it is too hot and dreadfully sunny. I write a few letters then meet up with the others downstairs: today is press day, and over the next few hours we try to respond honestly and earnestly to questions of Killing An Arab, Maradona, Killing a Thatcher, and mental health etc, etc. It is brave and interminable and the escape is quick and sneaky - and we land in my room once more for a reviving stroh rum! Again braving the crowd, we go back down, get into the car, and speed off to the Ferro Carril Oeste football stadium looks remarkably like Loftus Road, and stepping out onto the glowing floodlit pitch, a lump jumps in my throat... A football suddenly appears, and we are off and singing, but the game does not last long and Team Cure soon disintegrates amid a forest of blatant handballs and cries of 'cheat'. The Argentinian participants feign benign ignorance... Our soundcheck lasts a couple of hours, and ends around 10, and with a rowdy visit to Ristorante Fish, the day at last closes on the 24 th Floor at the hotel, mooning softly...

Tuesday March 17th 1987: Struggling up at 1, drink several pots of coffee, and we go back to the ground: It is hot and dreadfully sunny, but we soundcheck to perfection for another couple of hours and then disappear beneath the stand into the visitors dressing room. I do another couple of interviews and am given on Argentinian Team strip, a bunch of blood-red roses, and a message from a man who looks insanely the same as Tootsie... And then the sound of breaking glass. There has apparently been some 'confusion', we are told, over ticket sales - 19,000 people have them, but only 17,000 can officially enter the ground, and, in consequence, there are more than a few irate punters trying to get in by other methods: a full scale riot ensues, with numerous police cars rolled, several security dogs killed, and a hot dog man suffering a heart attack before we go onstage. For almost two hours we play amidst deafening bedlam, before rushing off, screaming, into the car and away. It is a while before our heads stop shaking, and we end up having an early breakfast in the bar before bed...

Wednesday March 18th 1987: I pull open the curtains to the inevitable too hot and dreadfully sunny people camped outside, before rushing into Simon's room for milk and gossip. We leave for the football stadium at 3, and as we start a short final soundcheck, the sun hits 100 degrees. We melt down into the change room and, between interviews, listen to Nick Drake and Billie Holiday. The noise above increases inexorably, and we look nervously at each other as we are told that tonight, disregarding another ticket 'confusion', there will be 'no' trouble' ... The crowd surges forward as we go onstage, and despite the higher barricades and extra police (or more exactly because of the higher barries and extra police), battle begins. By half-way through the set there are several uniformed men on fire, with most of their comrades taking shelter under the stage from the ceaseless and merciless rain of coins, seats, stones and glass. Unfortunately not all of it is accurately thrown, and Porl is the first of us to be hit: the longer this goes on, the more bitter we become, and when a coke bottle cracks me full in the face during '10.15' I stop the song and go a touch berserk. We end with a gloriously punky thrash through 'Arabs-a-go-go' and then we are away. Outside the ground is not unlike downtown Beirut, and we are more than relieved to reach the sanctuary of the hotel. I go to bed shattered, the others spending varying amounts of time in the bar while I dream of murder...

Thursday March 19th 1987: Get up feeling fresh at 11.30 and leave for the airport at one after a short but spirited 'Reuters' interview and a protracted farewell session outside with the crowd. The flight is bumpy and uncomfortable and it is a relief to touch down at 5.30 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. After a lengthy bout of form filling we are in through a 300 strong crowd and out onto a 40 seater coach! We drive bouncily to the hotel where we are confronted by even more people screaming hello and firing blinding flash as we dismount and squeeze into reception. A quick visit to our flower-filled rooms is followed by the inevitable TV and press conference debacle. It is the usual 60 minute quiz, and then we eat: the food is fish and it is very fresh and yummy, as, we discover, is the local liquor, 'Pinger', though by the second bottle the round table has surely started to spin... so bed is late... late...