LOL TOLHURST + EVI VINE – QUARTERS, BRIGHTON 28.10.26
As well as being an acclaimed author, drummer Lol Tolhurst is famously known as one of the founding members along with Robert Smith of Crawley’s punk turned goth outfit The Cure. Tolhurst played on all of The Cure releases from ‘Killing An Arab’ (1978) to ‘Disintegration’ (1989), which as far as I’m concerned was by far their best period! Tolhurst split from the band in 1989 and he relocated to California, formed Levinhurst but later reunited with The Cure in 2011.
When out of the blue Tolhurst a few months ago announced 7 live dates, 5 supporting the Chameleons (Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, London and Southampton), as well as an appearance at Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival Halloween Gathering in Whitby, and most importantly a headline date here at Quarters on Brighton seafront, to say that I was over-excited for this gig is an understatement!
Back in the day I had seen The Cure live in action on several occasions in the early to mid 1980’s and the lineup of Smith, Tolhurst and Gallup certainly did it for me! Their material such as ‘Killing An Arab’, ‘Jumping Someone Else’s Train’, ‘Grinding Halt’, ‘Fire In Cairo’, ‘A Forest’, ‘All Cats Are Grey’, ‘Primary’, ‘Charlotte Sometimes’, ‘The Hanging Garden’, ‘A Strange Day’ and ‘The Walk’ delivered on every front! The quality of this work still stands the test of time to this very day, so I totally get that Tolhurst wanted to get back out there again!
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Tolhurst is riding again and is here along with his son Gray Tolhurst who is summoning his innermost Robert Smith as he’s taking care of guitar and vocals; they are joined by our old chum Oliver Cherer (from Aircooled and Miki Bereyni Trio) on bass, and are playing a mix of Cure material. For me, this is a chance to re-hear the classic Cure songs inside a grassroots music venue as opposed to standing outside in the elements miles away from the Glastonbury stage! My only worry is will the lads do the songs justice, so let’s see shall we…
We are in the trios company for a mere 53 minutes, which incidentally is actually two minutes shorter than the support artist, which is rather unusual! But before they enter the stage, I feel that I must flag up two things! The first of which being that we were charged in excess of £12 for two small tins of beer! This is double the price of other music venues in town and so they seriously need to have a word with themselves! I, for one, will be ordering water from there in the future, just as my mate Sonny had done tonight! The second flag was that a certain member of the security staff really didn’t understand how live concerts worked, as opposed to just club nights! The crowd barrier at the front is there to distance the punters from the band and to keep them safe as well as doubling up as the photographer’s pit! Thankfully we had the only photographer in this evening, so just the one awkward discussion was had as opposed to many! Right moving on….now to the music….
At 8:50pm Cherer straps on his Squier Jaguar bass guitar, Tolhurst junior puts on his guitar, and Tolhurst senior is seated behind the drumkit, which also has Cherer’s borrowed Aircooled synth to the side for Lol to play when required. They open up with ‘The Holy Hour’ from The Cure’s 1981 ‘Faith’ album. Thankfully Gray’s vocals are a good approximation of Robert Smith’s and the music sounds very similar, with plenty of echoey guitar! Surprisingly, hit single ‘A Forest’ from The Cure’s 1980 ‘Seventeen Seconds’ album is selection two. This sees Lol on keys from the start. On completion, the track was well received by the packed crowd. Lol addresses us and states that it’s been a long time since he has been here in Brighton, and that The Cure were always coming to the City when they were teenagers.
The drumming led ‘Siamese Twins’ from The Cure’s 1982 ‘Pornography’ album is up next and it’s a quality delivery. Much to my surprise, the best tune of the set on the night for me came next, this being ‘A Strange Day’ which is also found on ‘Pornography’. The drumming on this was top dollar and the vocals were otherworldly. I know what Oliver is like, and he always loves to give it his all when playing live, by exaggerating his bass guitar moves and posing for the camera, but in order to keep things goth, he really fights to keep these to a minimum this evening, which must have been alien to him. But you can’t have goths prancing around the stage having a ball can you? They have to be stationary and disinterested, almost moody!
After ‘M’ from The Cure’s 1980 ‘Seventeen Seconds’ album, we are served another cut from ‘Pornography’, this time around it’s the classic ‘The Hanging Garden’ with its intense drumming, which gets cheers from the crowd from the off. I can hear keyboards too, but I missed where they were triggered from as Lol isn’t playing them, as he’s concentrating on the drums, and a fine job he is doing too. I had been hoping that they would be playing ‘All Cats Are Grey’ from The Cure’s 1981 ‘Faith’ album this evening and I’m not disappointed, as it’s the next song. Lol informs us that despite what we may have heard, that he actually penned the tune and that it’s about his mother. This track more than any other Cure tune has stayed with me down the decades and it’s one that I’ve never got bored of, and quite frankly even prefer it more now than on its release. This evening’s rendition is good, but to be honest, it’s not as good as the recorded version!
Lol now says that the next tune is about doing some things when they were boys, cue ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ from The Cure’s 1979 ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ album, and staying with the boys theme , they play ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ from The Cure’s 1980 ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ compilation album and Lol informs us when he was called to say that the track had after all these years made it to No.1. However, he’s not actually referring to the Official Singles Chart that we all know, as it reached No.22 in that. He was referring to the Physical Singles Chart where it did get to No.1 back in February this year, and was in that chart for an impressive 39 weeks!
Track ten is ‘10:15 Saturday Night’ from The Cure’s 1979 ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ album, and this is greeted with another cheer. After which the trio vacate the stage, which seems to take quite a few fans by surprise. They do return and some punters start shouting out their favourite Cure classics, but Lol states that they haven’t actually rehearsed any other tracks and so it’s going to have to be a second playing from one of tunes they’ve already performed. They settle on ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ as led by Lol, which for me was quite possibly the weakest song of the set along with ‘M’. The song gets played after which they take their bows and at 9:43pm that’s it. Overall, it was another ride down memory lane, but it wasn’t as exciting as my head had made it all those weeks before the gig.
Lol Tolhurst:
Lol Tolhurst – drums, keys
Gray Tolhurst – guitar, vocals
Oliver Cherer – bass
Lol Tolhurst setlist of The Cure songs:
‘The Holy Hour’ (from The Cure 1981 ‘Faith’ album)
‘A Forest’ (from The Cure 1980 ‘Seventeen Seconds’ album)
‘Siamese Twins’ (from The Cure 1982 ‘Pornography’ album)
‘A Strange Day’ (from The Cure 1982 ‘Pornography’ album)
‘M’ (from The Cure 1980 ‘Seventeen Seconds’ album)
‘The Hanging Garden’ (from The Cure 1982 ‘Pornography’ album)
‘All Cats Are Grey’ (from The Cure 1981 ‘Faith’ album)
‘Three Imaginary Boys’ (from The Cure 1979 ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ album)
‘Boys Don’t Cry’ (from The Cure 1980 ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ compilation album)
‘10:15 Saturday Night’ (from The Cure 1979 ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ album)
(encore)
‘Three Imaginary Boys’ (from The Cure 1979 ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ album)
Support this evening comes from the enchanting Devon based Evi Vine who is here with her band, these comprising Steven Hill Sonics (guitars), Tom Jones (guitars), Matt Holt (bass) and Benoit Martyni (drums). This evening Evi and her band are performing a trio of songs from her forthcoming album ‘Return Of The White Raven’, as well as three older songs, which they begin with. They are playing again this Friday where they will be supporting The Mission, a band that Evi is clearly a fan of. This being at the aforementioned Tomorrow’s Ghosts Festival Halloween Gathering in Whitby, where Lol Tolhurst is also performing.
Prior to Covid, Evi had dropped a half dozen releases and has now reset herself and a trio have followed afterwards with another the ‘Return Of The White Raven’ album in the pipeline. Tonight is my debut encounter with Evi, and the musicians take to the raised stage at 7:28pm and we are in their company for 55 minutes until 8:23pm. The quintet are all glad in black, as you would expect from gothy types, can’t have them donning Hawaii shirts can we! The lighting is very moody and set to burnout red, which isn’t ideal for grabbing quality shots on your mobile phone. I note that the guitarists each have a host of foot pedals on offer, and Evi has added a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece (or Bigsby for short) which is a mechanical vibrato device for electric guitars designed by Paul Bigsby.
There’s a slow strum intro for opener ‘Inside Her’ from 2011’s ‘…And So The Morning Comes’ album. It’s an ethereal and mystical number with a Patti Smith vibe, and I particularly liked the way that Benoit was using cotton tipped drumsticks which added a dimension to the sound, something akin to listening to The Cure’s ‘Faith’ album. Song two ‘Colours Of The Night’ from 2011’s ‘…And So The Morning Comes’ album offers more of the same sound, with Evi’s lyrics feeling as though they have a story to tell with a deep meaning. She adds wailing vocals too at times. Evi informs us that the next tune is from her ‘Black//Light//White//Dark’ album which features The Cure’s Simon Gallup on bass. This impresses those gathered. The tune is called ‘Sad Song No.9’ and seated guitarist Steven utilizes a violin bow to run across his guitar strings. He’s clearly done this a number of times before as many of the natural horsehair or modern synthetic alternatives have already given up the ghost. I haven’t seen this effect for quite some while, after local Brighton based (via Nottingham) heroes Swallowtail called it a day.
None of Evi’s tunes are sub three minute pop songs, they are on average at least three times as long, which allows those in the crowd to lose themselves in the sound should they wish. Evi thanked us for coming out early in order to catch her set, and she went on to explain the importance of supporting grassroots music venues and allowing artists to promote their art (music).
Evi next explained that the remainder of the set would be new material from ‘Return Of The White Raven’. These three tunes aren’t actually named for us, partly because they either don’t have titles or just working titles at present, although I learnt the middle of the three is titled ‘Nemain’. The first of the three has the drums to the fore with trippy psych Jefferson Airplane style vocals, and they seriously wigged on out to this tune. The guitars were at the fore for ‘Nemain’ and they had an almost distortion vibe. It’s an intense tune that mirrors the lost lands of the buffalo in Canada and America. The final offering is a tune about a connection of coming together. The drums again lead the way as the guitars and bass skirt across the top. Evi used two small castanet style blocks to hit against each other for added depth. The composition built a crescendo along the lines of ‘The End’ by The Doors. I reckon local promoters Melting Vinyl would need to check out Evi as her sound falls within their Lewes Psych Fest remit. At 8:23pm that was our lot. A very well received set.
Evi Vine:
Evi Vine – vocals, box guitar
Steven Hill Sonics – guitars
Tom Jones – guitars
Matt Holt – bass
Benoit Martyni – drums
Evi Vine setlist:
‘Inside Her’ (from 2011 ‘…And So The Morning Comes’ album)
‘Colours Of The Night’ (from 2011 ‘…And So The Morning Comes’ album)
‘Sad Song No.9’ (from 2019 ‘Black//Light//White//Dark’ album)
“Unnamed 1” (from the forthcoming ‘Return Of The White Raven’ album)
‘Nemain’ (from the forthcoming ‘Return Of The White Raven’ album)
“Unnamed 2” (from the forthcoming ‘Return Of The White Raven’ album)
