The Cure - Black Sessions (2023)

The Black Sessions – studio performances by contemporary bands and artists broadcast on the France Inter channel - are recorded in front of a live audience and featured regularly on the station’s C'est Lenoir show. The first session in the series was transmitted in 1992 and since then numerous French and international artists have performed Black Sessions, including Nick Cave, Smashing Pumpkins, The Divine Comedy, Cocteau Twins and hundreds of other groups or performers. Host Bernard Lenoir - often considered the French John Peel - followed The Cure's career since their early days but had never managed to get the band onto his show, for various reasons, mostly scheduling incompatibilities. Twelve years after the very first ‘Black Sessions’, The Cure finally managed to play for this highly respected program. The band’s set consisted of 18 songs during the 90-minute recording, although two cuts were not aired, ‘Us or Them’ and ‘Alt.End’. Leaving a hugely enjoyable 16 song performance however, the recording has never previously been released on CD, but this new title now includes the entire broadcast for the first time.