Prelude: Remembering the Dead
The Cure went on stage at ten fifteen on Friday 1st June for their Primavera 2012 set, and they stayed there for the next thirty hours. In the buildup to the festival, the weak-willed promoters had continually acquiesced to Robert Smith's repeated demands for more time, eventually allowing him and his band to both headline the second night and close the third and final night without interruption.
The Cure played many of their obscure songs, b-sides, and album tracks more than once, whilst dropping in their hits at a rate of one approximately every two hours. They saved "Boys Don't Cry" for last. "Play Boys Don't Cry" shouted every single Primavera attendee at least once during the course of the band's set. "Not yet," Robert Smith replied calmly each time. "We're going to play another mostly instrumental cut from one of our less popular albums. We know that's what you want to hear really."
The thousands of loyal Cure fans in attendance never did give up hope that they would hear "Boys Don't Cry," and remained rooted in front of the San Miguel stage for the entirety of the performance. Their happiness was diminished, however, when they realised that the band's selfishness had robbed them of the final day of the festival. En masse, they unleashed their anger along the coast of East Barcelona, razing much of it to the ground. Many of the male rioters were visibly in tears, softly singing Cure songs to themselves and repeating the question "why does Robert Smith hate me?" to no-one in particular. It took three days to get the violence under control, and amidst all the destruction over 50,000 people died.
Their blood is on your hands, Robert Smith. Their blood is on your hands.
The story that follows is dedicated to their memory.
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