Don’t piss off The Cure, Robert Palmer found out in 1981
In 1981, 5 July to be precise, The Cure played at Belgium’s Werchter Festival to promote their album “Seventeen Seconds”. Other bands playing that year were De Kreuners, Dire Straits, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Undertones, Toots & The Maytals and Robert Palmer.
The day before in Torhout the band had been able to play 15 songs, in Werchter they would only play 13 songs skipping “Three Imaginary Boys” and “Faith”. The Cure, consisting of Robert Smith, Simon Gallup and Laurence Tolhurst, was scheduled to play just before Robert Palmer and while they were playing, they were told to cut their set short by Robert Palmer’s managers.
Right after ending “Play For Today” Robert Smith says: “This is the final song because we’re not allowed to carry on anymore, cause everybody want’s to see Robert Palmer I think. It’s called ‘A Forest'”. What follows is a stretched version of “A Forest” into a 9-minute long rendition. When the band stops Simon Gallup takes the mic and yells “I hope you’re not arresting me. Fuck Robert Palmer! Fuck rock’n’roll!”. Bootlegs from that show often include that track being aptly titled “A Forest (Fuck R.P. Version)”.
Here’s said song recorded that day.
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