One day, back in 1992 or so, I was listening to the radio, and on came what sounded like a brand new song by Robert Smith and the Cure! Fun, jingly, and with an incredibly catchy chorus, I was surprised when the radio DJ announced it was in fact, a group called Presence!
Presence? Who the heck were these guys? And why did they sound so much like the Cure? Back in the days before the Internet, one couldn’t attain such information so easily! Then one day, after playing the song (which I had now known was called “Act Of Faith”), the DJ offhandedly stated that it was a song by a new group from a former member of the Cure! “So!” I thought to myself, “Robert Smith has split up the Cure, and formed a new group called Presence!” Right?
Well, no, not really.
I was to later find out by way of a magazine (ah, back when information was only found in the printed word!) that although it WAS a former member of the Cure, it wasn’t Robert Smith at all (who was quite happily still with The Cure, thank you very much) but Laurence Tolhurst, one of the original members, first as a drummer, then later on keyboards, before leaving (under circumstances I still don’t know for certain) the group after the Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me Album.
So it was Laurence Tolhurst’s group! Then I thought to myself, “Wow, I never realized how much he and Robert Smith sang alike! It must be all that time working together that did it! Right?
Well, no, not really.
You see, after his departure from the Cure, Tolhurst reunited with Michael Dempsey (he himself another ex-Cure member) to create an almost doppelganger sounding group to the Cure itself... As for the amazingly Robert Smith-ish vocals, they’d simply gotten Gary Biddles, a talented singer who sounded like a exact clone of Robert Smith, to fill Robert’s shoes!
Sadly, the group never really caught on, and their album Inside turned out to be their one and only release. But for what it’s worth, it’s quite a catchy record, and for light-hearted pop tunes, it certainly satisfies, and is still a joy to listen to!
