The Cure “In-Cure-Able: Punk at Its Best” 1981. Very much a bootleg, with a blank label and cheaply pasted on front and back images (that you can see are starting to peel). Discogs lists Centrefugal Records as the record label that released it: that information may have been on an album insert, now lost to the ages. Though the cover says this is “Live at the Lyceum London, May 1981,” I’m pretty sure it was actually recorded at a show in New York at the Hurrah on April 15th, 1980 if the comment chatter on Discogs is to be trusted. The audience certainly sounds American, Yankee-accented heckling includes “If you don’t like it here then why the fuck did you come in the first place?!” at Robert Smith in between The Cure’s performance of “In Your House” and “10:15 Saturday Night.” The sparse-sounding crowd otherwise vacillates between polite clapping and some occasional enthusiastic whoops and whistles. It’s a really decent recording for a 1980 bootleg! Not much background noise (except for the heckling) and while it certainly isn’t highly polished – not even close – the quality matches The Cure’s early sound. They play songs from Three Imaginary Boys (1979): the aforementioned “10:15” plus “Three Imaginary Boys” and “Grinding Halt,” as well as tracks from 1980’s Seventeen Seconds: “A Forest, “Play for Today” and “Seventeen Seconds.” Also performed were the singles “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Fire in Cairo,” “Accuracy,” “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” and “Grinding Halt,” all of which they included on the 1980 comp Boys Don’t Cry. The only song I’m not sure about is titled “The Cure” – I have no clue where else this exists.

While this is not the same show, it’s probably around the same time in NY with a very similar set list: