The Cure performs at British Summertime Fest at Hyde Park in London on July 7, 2018. Courtesy Paige K. Parsons.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — After walking onstage on Saturday, The Cure frontman, Robert Smith, surveyed the sea of people in the crowd at Shoreline Amphitheatre. A fanr offered a red rose to the frumpy and tousled singer who reached out to take it. The strangely intimate moment between fan and star, while out of place in such a huge venue, was emblematic of the intense connection the audience felt to this band.

After all, it had been awhile. The Cure hasn’t toured North America since 2016, and demand for Saturday’s show was so massive that a second show was added Monday.

Smith paced the stage as the band began with the orchestral chug of “Alone,” off much-anticipated new record Songs Of a Lost World, which fans have been waiting patiently for for quite some time.

“This is the end of every song that we sing” Smith sang as a wall of sound emanated from the two synth players, guitar, drums and bass as a picture of a blue and beautiful Earth was projected on the giant backdrop. Smith grabbed a guitar and added to the moody groove as he sang the outro’s lines, “Where did it go?”

The Cure setlist at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. on May 27, 2023. Photo by Nick Buckmaster.

The crowd offered near endless variations of heavy eyeliner designs and black denim and leather fashion. Summertime in the Bay Area meant many concertgoers donned hoodies and heavy jackets to battle the summertime May temperatures that dropped briskly into the 50s after sunset.

The opening riff of the much more familiar “Pictures of You,” off 1989 album Disintegration, elicited cheers from fans who swayed in the gathering darkness. Followed by “A Night Like This,” from 1985’s Head on the Door, the pair of songs about regret had many singing along with some couples staring soulfully at one another during the mushy bits.

The Cure performs at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. on May 27, 2023. Photo by Nick Buckmaster.

Musically, the band seemed to have updated its sound a bit with some slightly more overdriven guitars and even some face-melting guitar pyrotechnics, in the style of Eddie Van Halen, by Reeves Gabrels, who’s been with the band since 2012 and played with David Bowie before that. Gabrels delivered a scorching guitar solo on “A Night Like This,” replacing the studio recording’s saxophone break. The guitars were more aggressive on a slightly faster rendition of “A Forest” and heavy wah-wah guitar punctuated “Endsong,” from the upcoming album.

Both “Lovesong” from Disintegration and “In Between Days” from Head on the Door had much of the audience filming the action with phones lofted high over their heads. People remained standing for the entirety of the 75-minute set and much of the two encores. Even new songs like the slightly Radiohead-esque “And Nothing Is Forever” and “I Can Never Say Goodbye” kept people’s rapt attention. The latter’s largely instrumental sections, with the song’s chiming guitars proved to be a hit.

The Cure performs at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. on May 27, 2023. Photo by Nick Buckmaster.

The Cure’s first encore included “It Can Never Be The Same,” which had a long, moody intro. The synth-heavy wall of sound on “Plainsong” felt especially powerful with a guitar-less Smith stationed at the mic stand as he likened love to apocalypse, singing, “I think it’s dark and it looks like rain, you said/ And the wind is blowing like it’s the end of the world, you said/ And it’s so cold, it’s like the cold if you were dead/ Then you smiled for a second.”

The intensity of the song seemed strangely timeless, like a core memory recalled. The second encore included two of the Cure’s biggest hits, “Just Like Heaven” and “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Earlier in the evening, The Twilight Sad delivered and energetic opening set of synth-heavy alt-pop. Vocalist James Graham thanked the audience in a thick Scottish accent as the band concluded with “[10 Reasons for Modern Drugs],” off 2019 album It Won/t Be Like This All the Time. As the band’s instruments roared with overdriven feedback, a member unfurled a pink, white and blue transgender flag to frenzied cheering.

Follow writer David Gill at Twitter.com/saxum_paternus.