1984-05-29 Utrecht - Muziekcentrum Vredenburg (Netherlands)
postponed to 1984-05-31 [16:30 show]
Day of the week: Tuesday
Tour: 'The Top Tour'
Tour: 'The Top Tour'
thanks to René @ theside.free.fr
from JC Moglia
from the book 'Ten Imaginary Years'
While the British music press were getting to grips with Robert's claim that he took a live lamb on tour (He told Smash Hits he found the staff at one hotel feeding it while he told Sounds it had been a present from a fan and was now living on his brother's farm in Wales - "I went to see it recently. It didn't remember me at all."), he was becoming severely run down and, on 26 May, he called Severin from Hamburg to say he couldn't fulfil his commitment to The Banshees.Robert: "I couldn't sleep. I was so bad that each night in the hotel, I'd be sitting there in bed, really wild-eyed and shaking and sweating and I thought 'It's finished - I mustn't seriously damage my health just for the sake of not letting The Banshees down'. So I phoned Severin and got his answer machine. I left a very long message explaining myself - I called about 10 times. The next morning, Severin rang me and I said I'd do the British tour but not the American one and, even then, I couldn't guarantee I'd be able to finish the British one. "When he'd got my message, he'd been really pissed off and couldn't believe I was serious but, listening to my voice, he could tell I was in a really bad way and he was really concerned. He asked me to come back to England to see them and I agreed. So The Cure cancelled two gigs and I flew over - but I was really cursing them because it was the worst flight I'd ever had; the plane got hit by lightning, all the lights went out and I was thinking 'The bastards! It's alltheir fault! I'm gonna plummet from the sky!' That was the last straw.
"When I got back, instead of going to see The Banshees, I went to see my doctor who I hadn't seen in about seven years and he was quite horrified at the state I was in and insisted I check into a health farm immediately or he wouldn't be answerable for the consequences. I refused - I had to finish The Cure tour - so he wrote me a certificate explaining I needed a complete rest and I sent that to The Banshees. Sioux was furious and kept going 'How come you can do The Cure tour but not The Banshees tour?' but I think Severin understood and anyway, by then my mind was made up. After all, I'd given them two weeks' notice which was longer than any guitarist had given them before!" Robert returned to finish The Cure tour ...
Note: After the Hamburg concert mentioned above, there was another concert in Berlin, after which a concert was canceled, namely the concert in Utrecht on May 29, which had been postponed to May 31.
translation by René @ theside.free.fr
TONIGHTS SHOW OF THE CURE POSTPONED
Because one of the equipment trucks from The Cure was involved in a trafficaccident this morning and couldn't reach the Muziekcentrum in time, it's not possible that they can play tonights show.
Tickets stay valid for the extra show at THURSDAY MAY 31 at 4.30 pm.
If you can't be present at this show you can change your tickets where you've bought them.
Also the VVV-vouchers from 29.5 are valid for the May 31 show.
Apologize on behalf of Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, MOJO and the bandmembers.I was there, but I didn't know there where 2 shows that day, .... the show on May 29 1984 in Utrecht wich was postponed to the 31th, the reason was that one of the trucks with equipment had a accident and couldn't make it in time.The trucks transporting the equipment set off at 2 p.m. towards Holland, where the last three shows of the tour are supposed to be done. Late in the afternoon a call from a GDR-police station: The back-line-truck started skidding because of aquaplaning and got off the road. The "Vopos" (= members of the "People's Police" in the German Democratic Republic) preventively grabbed the two terrified Englishmen and demanded a fine. Of course the drivers don't have a penny, but after three hours of "interrogation" they are released.
The trucks with the shattered drivers don't arrive at the German-Dutch border until 5 a.m. I talk to them on the phone - and I suggest them getting a shuteye but driving on not later than 10, otherwise they wouldn't reach Utrecht in time. And before they'd set off I told them to definitely give me a call. Which wouldn't happen. To top it all we miss our direct flight to Amsterdam since we've been told the wrong departure time, so we have to change our booking via Frankfurt.
When we finally arrive at Utrecht, there's no trace of the back-line-truck We wait till half past 7 - then the show is cancelled. Five minutes later the truck arrives. And I had been so proud of accompanying a Cure-tour where (almost) nothing went wrong, no extreme excesses, no fights, no cancellations - and then that! Fortunately a second gig in Utrecht is scheduled anyhow - and since this concert falls on a holiday, it's no problem to push in a replacement-concert in the afternoon. But still, due to such things automatically the crew's mood hits rock bottom. All the effort, all the strains - all for nothing! At night in a disco in Amsterdam we dance the frustration out of ourselves. It gets even really funny when early in the morning Robert, in his phlegmatic manner, tries to shake a leg to crispy funk-rhythms.
Then the last two gigs of this tour in Utrecht, where nearly 100 fans from Berlin, Munich, Duesseldorf, Paris, Italy and England assembled to see the band one more time before the end of the tour. The concert turns out to be a worthy ending of the six weeks that cost a lot of substance of man and material. Specially during the last days a tour inevitably gets out of control. When on top of it all these concerts take place in a country where a few things are easier to get than a bottle of beer, you can picture the rest to yourself....
unknown whether there was an opening act
Venue address:
Vredenburgpassage 773511 DL Utrecht
Venue related websites:
General concert capacity of the venue:
5'000
The Cure appearances at this venue:
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