Andrea Miller reviews the Cures's April 1984 show in the NME in her article Sluggish!

"Oh God we're going to see Robert Smith in a minute. He'll walk on that stage and pick up his guitar and play it and sing songs and breathe the same air as us and we'll see him real close up because we're only two back from the front row. And we'll be able to see the lipstick on his face, and his hands on the guitar and everything.

Oh Sandra the lights are going down and he's walking on stage looking just like that.

Cure fans aren't stupid you know. They know enough not to throw cuddly toys and scream.


The Cure aren't stupid either. They know what they're doing. For instance, they know they are intensely boring to watch (catatonic is the word that springs to mind) so they use film projections to entertain the audience. Y'know ART. But they use really boring ones - geddit? Pretty clever, in the end the entertainment comes from trying to work out which aspect is the most deadeningly dull.

For instance. They write great pieces of whimsical pop/psychedelic fantasy like 'Lovecats' or 'Caterpillar' and make tons of boodle in the singles chart, then write sombre pseudo-soul-searching late night listening examinations of precise moments and put them out as an album. It sells anyway.

Live they are reluctant to play the hit singles, although they do throw in 'A Forest' and 'Hanging Gardens' mid set, and do 'Caterpillar' as a look-how-good-we-are-to-you favour encore. They opt instead to bore the knickers off their thousands of teenage torporette fans with a maddeningly uninspired plod through the new album 'The Top'.

Another thing that irritates and puzzles me about Robert Smith in particular is the question of how in hell's name he became an alternative teen sex idol when he looks like a cross between Erazerhead and Baby Jane.

When you really get down to it the most irritating thing about The Cure is that they know. They know they can afford to indulge themselves in nonsense like the apocalyptic 'Bananafishbones' and still send the fans home happy with deadpan renditions of '100 Years' or 'Cold'. They've got a sense of humour but are so arrogant that the joke can only be on the ticket buying public. They please themselves and take the money.

Cure concerts are boring. The fans are lemming-like enough to adore them. That's why Smith and pals are laughing."  We don't think Andrea was too impressed!!

Marillion perform their only gig ever at the Apollo.  The resultant bootleg "Gi's a Bun" shows Fish was on fine form.

Perhaps one of the most inappropriate support acts at the Apollo was soft rock outfit Verity who supported UK Heavy Metal act Saxon.  Faced by an audience of denim and leather clad fans singer John Verity left the stage in tears having received torrents of abuse from the Glasgow choir.

Scottish band Scheme from Greater Easterhouse in Glasgow become the first and only unsigned band ever to sell out the Apollo.

Wham! perform their hits in front of an enthusiastic young audience. Back then, George Michael and his partner Ridgley dressed in tiny white shorts, and played badminton during one number, stuffing shuttlecocks down their shorts then batting the feathered shuttlecocks into the crowd.