Dickie Felton | 13 May 2022
‘Friday I’m In Love’ was released by The Cure today exactly 30-years-ago.
Unusually the band actually put it out on a Friday (15 May 1992 to be precise).
I was in my last days of sixth-form. At home time I charged to my local record store to buy the limited edition 12 inch.
Bright pink, it remains the most beautiful vinyl in my entire record collection.
‘Friday I’m In Love’ was the second single from The Cure’s ‘Wish’ album.
Three decades since its release this simple love song still fills me with euphoria.
It’s the perfect radio song that elates endorphins whenever I hear it.
Robert Smith calls his gem: “…a very naïve, happy type of pop song.”
The lyrics describe the drudgery of the working week before Friday arrives and “shoes and spirits rise…”
Back in 1992 that kinda was how our lives were.
On a Friday I’d meet my girlfriend, “…Thursday doesn’t even start. Friday I’m in Love…”
In the old days we’d queue for hours outside concert venues to buy tickets for the bands we loved.
Thirty-years-ago we thought 7am was early enough to turn up to buy tickets for The Cure’s forthcoming concert at Liverpool Royal Court.
How wrong we were.
I had heart-in-mouth queasiness turning into Roe Street seeing a line that lengthed to Lime Street.
“We should be ok,” I muttered unreassuringly to my girlfriend as we jogged to the rear of queue in the back of beyond.
We agonised for three hours worrying if we’d miss out on seeing The Cure in the flesh…
Stressfully shuffling towards the box office, we spent the entire morning watching a trickle of fans emerge clutching their golden tickets.
Finally our turn and, at last, success. That ticket felt like our pass to paradise.
We’d wanted standing tickets. But all that was left was a handful of seats up in the balcony.
I frantically handed over two ten pound notes before the shutters came down and the gig was sold out.
I was 18 and three years into a voyage of musical discovery. I’d seen my first ever concert at the Royal Court three years earlier (The Beautiful South) and that followed shows by James, The Charlatans, Ride and Chris Isaak.
The Cure felt different. This was an absolutely massive group playing a small venue. They were used to playing arenas and stadiums around the globe.
I’d got into them a few years earlier when their concert film ‘The Cure in Orange’ hit TV screens.
I was 15 and had been transfixed by Smith’s backcombed hair, resplendent in red lipstick wailing his woes.
Their music was just electrifying. Aged 15 I’d caught a clip of their 1987 single ‘Just Like Heaven’ on TV and thought it greatest song ever written.
The ticket stub for the Liverpool show was a work of art. It was the first concert ticket I had bought that actually had branding of the band on it.
A few weeks later and the day came to watch The Cure for the first time.
The gig took place on a Sunday. That morning I’d sung my heart out from The Kop as Liverpool stopped United winning the league title.
Could life get any better?
After that glorious match I bounced into town in green Converse, jeans and light grey ‘grandad collar’ top – like the one sometimes worn by Cure drummer Boris Williams.
Pre-gig we went into The Vines on Lime Street and drank bottles of Mexican lager Sol because that’s what The Cure drank.
Once inside the venue I squandered my dole money on expensive Cure merchandise. (The teeshirt proving quite an investment three decades on…)
Robert Smith endeared himself immediately to the crowd passing comment on Liverpool’s win that day: “What a great result!” I spent the next decades mistakenly thinking he was a Liverpool fan…
I spent the entire concert mesmerised. They played 24 songs including eight from their new album.
I only saw big bands like The Cure on TV – playing to thousands of fans in an American football stadium, or crazed French fans in an ancient amphitheatre.
Imagine the thrill of bearing witness to ‘A Night Like This’, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, ‘A Forest’ and ‘From the Edge of The Deep Green Sea’.
The Cure played for a couple of hours. We had to sprint for the last train home. It’s a good job we caught it as we had no money for a cab.
Even if we’d had to walk the seven miles home that night it wouldn’t have mattered.
The next morning I woke up with my tour teeshirt and ticket stub on my bedside table.
“Did last night really happen?’ I asked myself…
A lifetime later I met Robert Smith.
We’d been at The Cure’s gig at New York City’s Randalls Island.
By a fluke of fate we’d ended up at the after-show party.
They say ‘don’t meet your heroes’ but he was absolutely brilliant.
That photo is now treasured as much as my pink vinyl of ‘Friday I’m In Love’.