English rock has been at the top of its game for decades, with the sounds, styles, and fury that drove us all wacky with glee. The unlikely-looking band from Crawley, Sussex, who formed in 1976, are one of the most charismatic of them all, and anyone attending college back in 1982 will remember that virtually every member of the Art department suddenly morphed into a disheveled-yet-somehow-smart-looking ghost-figure, one that was to multiply beyond those eclectic academic corridors and out into the streets. It was an epidemic, but was there a cure? Cure front-man, guitarist, songwriter, and all-round strange person Robert Smith has represented the one constant in the equation since the clever Crawley lads first emerged from whatever bizarre architecture you might fancy spawned them. Smith's appearance has always elicited images of moonlit cobbles, dripping black railings, macabre towers, and forbidding staircases threading between swooning medieval facades that almost meet overhead, and his music, somehow nothing like that at all, has been forever pigeonholed with that image, despite its often sunny, playful and experimental nature. When the people hunting The Cure tickets took on that unmistakable appearance, and it had Robert Smith written all over it, a collective misunderstanding was born. Never has the world of rock 'n' roll seen such a widespread identikit of a single musical icon; Smith clones sprouted up all over Christendom and beyond, to the distant glades of Asia. Dark thoughts, dark buildings, dark hair, and white faces were the order of the day. One can imagine Smith's utter horror and satisfaction, as he surveyed his subjects, like a pharaoh born into his realm, with only the style and effect of his bloodline to keep him company. People wanted to buy The Cure tickets, lots and lots of tickets to The Cure, and Smith stood paralyzed in the head-lamp beam of his own bizarre countenance. Behind the mask, something stirred, and then set off to take the media and legions of fans on a wild goose chase.

When their European 4Tour ends at Wembley Arena on March 20, Robert Smith will take his band, his porcupine hair, and his ghostly countenance across the pond to North America. From May 9, 2008, at Washington DC's Patriot Center, the phenomenon known as The Cure will be hitting the trail for their rescheduled North America 4Tour. The North America 4Tour will run until the end of June, where The Cure will play Madison Square Garden in New York City. The band, who have proved impossible to pigeonhole due to their originality and constant modifications, will leave their strange footprints across America, including a performance at May's Sasquatch Festival in George, WA predicted to last for two and a half hours. There will also be several added shows, including a gig at Kansas City's Starlight Theatre on May 19, Phoenix's Dodge Theatre on June 4, Fort Lauderdale's Bank Atlantic Center June 13, Austin Music Hall, on June 8, and a show in Cleveland, OH, yet to be arranged. Cure dates and The Cure 4Tour tickets are here. Click 'n' go, for there's no time to lose. Beware of Stubhub though. Don't let the harpies and the gargoyles beat you to those tickets to The Cure!