If you grew up listening to a band as brilliant as The Cure it’s hard to hold back the anticipation of seeing them live. This is a band that, after 30 years of playing, is still relevant in the hearts and lives of so many people. I like to think that by now the misconception that Cure fans are a bunch of brooding goth kids smelling up concert arenas with clove cigarettes and hairspray is gone. If you could see the cornucopia of music fans – all ages and races – dancing their hearts out in Madison Square Garden from the floor to the very top tiers on June 20, you’d understand just how powerful The Cure still is.

Robert Smith has always had a voice that is simultaneously fierce and delicate. He still sounds flawless and the new songs sound even better. The concert, originally scheduled for September, was postponed so they could work on material for the next album. But just like any other band, people were expecting the songs they knew, and there couldn’t possibly be any disappointed fans since The Cure played three encores and were performing a total of three hours.

They opened with “Underneath the Stars” to the roar of an ecstatic crowd. Favorites like “Charlotte Sometimes,” “The Walk,” “One Hundred Years” and even “Why Can’t I Be You” were part of the main set. They finished around midnight with “Killing an Arab” and everyone floated out of the Garden like Christmas came early.