Fresh off the back of the release of “Killing An Arab”/”10:15 Saturday Night” on 9 February and the launch of the Fiction label, Chris Parry now wanted to give The Cure a proper London showcase. As Dave McCullough noted in the Sounds feature in January, the Moonlight Club show on 20 December was already full of journos (himself included, reporting for a cover story), but the band needed to make more of a statement. After all, they had the coverage from the inkies and a single out.
Parry lined up four shows at The Marquee, then located on Wardour Street (“‘A’ bomb in Wardour Street!” sang Paul Weller in August 1978.”It’s blown up the west end, now it’s spreading throughout the cit-eh!”) which was the ideal place to showcase a new band, being trendy, central and reasonably sized.
The Cure would play a month-long residency at the Marquee in what was called “A Dose Of Sundays” – the “cure” puns hadn’t outstayed their welcome by this point. The dates fell in between some shows around Greater London and the South coast, meaning anyone whose curiosity was piqued by the reviews and the single could come and see the band in person.
For the support acts, Parry booked four different bands, the best known of which was the first: Joy Division,
Appearing on Sunday 4 March. the Manchester band had spent the day recording demos with producer Martin Rushent at Eden Studios in Chiswick. This was the show where Lol Tolhurst claimed in the Ten Imaginary Years book that he could see JD singer Ian Curtis had a “sad” aura about him (much to Robert Smith’s derision).
Bassist Peter Hook later caustically recalled in his book “Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division” that The Cure “resented us in some way, because we’d managed to stay cool, credible, and independent and they’d, well, sort of sold out a bit… I think they thought, Wish we were Joy Division.”
Tolhurst, on Facebook retorted: “I remember that particular gig too and my memory is somewhat different from Pete’s… We picked every band that opened for us. Because we, LIKED them and wanted to help them out. Not for any reason other than that.”
This all seems a bit silly – mainly because, well, neither band actually had much of a reputation at the time. The Cure had one single and one John Peel session; Joy Division had one EP, two tracks on another EP and one John Peel Session. The legend of Joy Division wouldn’t come until their first album, Unknown Pleasures, arrived in June and at this point, they hadn’t decided on releasing the LP via Factory – the major labels weren’t off the table at this point. Rushent’s Genetic recordings were licensed through the majors, so the demos were intended to attract the attention of a big label.
Sadly, neither Joy Division or The Cure’s sets were recorded on this day, although setlists for both have survived. While JD were performing “She’s Lost Control” and “Transmission”, RS was playing “Boys DOn’t Cry” and Jimi Hendrix covers. Did he resent Joy Division? Maybe he was actually impressed.
Crying For Yesterday 