The Most Beautiful Battle of All

The Smiths vs. the Cure. When my friend alerted me to this periodic dance event held at the Black Cat in DC, I responded instantly that yes, I was in.

So on Friday night, a group of us squeezed onto the dance floor at the Black Cat to the strains of the Cure's "How Beautiful You Are."

"I used to have a T-shirt that had all the lyrics to this song printed on it," I hoarsely cried to my compatriots, who nodded politely. I sang along to every goddamned song they played--one Smiths to one Cure seemed to be the formula (with a few classic Morrissey solo tracks thrown in for good measure). It was, as I pointed out to someone later, a "wet dream" for me.

"You and I have very different wet dreams," was his reply.

Well, clearly. But for a recently-turned 37-year old aging hipster, this was a nirvana I never thought I'd experience. In the last few years, I've reclaimed my late 80's tastes in music and embraced them with a passion to the point where I listen today almost exclusively to what I listened to at 19.

It's a function of "everything old is new again," to a degree, along with my steadfast stubbornness in accepting new music (unless I discover it myself). I hear new bands and comment on how much their sound is derived from such and such. It makes me a curmudgeon and frustrates my younger pals, but I have successfully introduced some of them to this glorious old 80s alternative catalog.

So armed with that emotional baggage, you can see that the Smiths v Cure night was the most fun I've had at a show in years. I jumped and twisted and stepped on everyone near me at least once. I screamed when they played "Interesting Drug" by Morrissey, because earlier that day I "rediscovered" it when it came up on my iPod shuffle. I stood mouth agape when they played "The Blood" from the Cure's Head on the Door. I secretly wished the DJ would lose his copy of the Cure's 1990 remix album Mixed Up, but other than that, the songs surprisingly blended very well and kept everyone moving.

It used to be that one couldn't be equally passionate for both bands. I distinctly remember in college, there was tension between die-hard Cure fans and their Smiths counterparts--one faction dark and quasi-goth (I never considered Robert Smith to be goth, per se, but that's another blog entry); the other moody, introspective, pale and thin. I was happy to bounce between the two--and to a degree I still do, though my body type has morphed from Morrissey's to Robert's through the years.

So who was I rooting for? Neither, really. But I will state for the record that the Smiths were the first of the two bands that I latched on to (to an almost frightening degree; I mean I lived the Smiths) at age 18. Their music changed my life, in the same way that Joni Mitchell's was to change it just a year later. And I don't throw that statement around lightly (although I am given to exaggeration).

Then when Disintegration hit in 1989, I was all over the Cure. I had more Robert Smith posters in my room than anyone should have and at least a dozen Cure T-shirts. God knows where or how I got them. The culmination of this mania took place in August of 1989, when I saw, on the same bill, the Pixies, Love and Rockets and the Cure at Giant Stadium. I wept openly when they took to the stage to the strains of "Plainsong," the first track from Disintegration. I was to repeat that reaction 11 years later when I saw Joni Mitchell take to the stage--and then again in 2004, when I saw Annie Lennox for the first time--and later that same year when I finally (after three thwarted attempts over two decades) saw Morrissey live in concert.

But on Friday night at the Black Cat, no tears were shed. It was a glorious night--and quite a revelation. I transported myself back to those days when listening to the Smiths in the middle of the Pennsylvania mountains was a private, insular experience during which I thought I'd never find anyone else who loved this music as much as I did.

Well, turns out I was wrong--and Friday night proved that people are still discovering this music and it's speaking to them. I don't feel so old now.