Cure tribute band at Elevation on July 19

There’s no cause for angst: Even though the Cured concentrates on the Cure’s happier pop, the black-nail-polish crowd is certainly welcome Saturday, July 19, at Elevation 6130.

“There’s two Cures: There’s the happy video poppy Cure, and there’s the dark, depressed Cure,” said Michael “Zippy” Twombly, the tribute band’s lead singer.

“Once in a while you’ll get some of the hard-core black-fingernail people and they’ll say ‘You’re making a caricature of Robert Smith,’ and I’ll say, ‘No, he did that himself.’ ”

While the Cured ranges all over the Cure catalogue, the focus is on the original band’s output from 1978-95, particularly the hits, with a tendency toward the poppier side. Twombly estimated that concertgoers would recognize 90 percent of what the Cured would play.

“We have the advantage of being able to go through and cherry-pick the songs,” he said.

“Just start naming their hits, and that’s our set list,” guitarist Sol Turpin added.

While Twombly said the band expects to get strung up if it doesn’t play “Just Like Heaven,” the Cured might have a couple of surprises up its black sleeves. Like the original band, the Cured has taken “The Forest” and made it into a distinct part of the live show — stretching the dubby song to as long as nine minutes. The Cured also plays “Man Inside My Mouth,” which a founding member of the Cure told the tribute act that the original band never plays live.

Twombly traced the Cured’s foundation back to Southern California, where he was interested in ’80s tributes, particularly alternative bands that had made a splash on the radio.

“We knew we had to do a band that had a lot of hits — we didn’t want to a Soft Cell tribute or something,” Twombly said. “We’re not good enough looking to be Duran Duran.”

Playing as a tribute to the Cure and touring nationally yielded other surprises. For one, the Cured — which also includes Chuck Cameron on guitar, Greg Karlo on drums and Kiwi keyboard player Tracee Houghton — discovered two other Cure tributes, one of which plays mostly east Los Angeles and came to see a Cured show last week.

“They represent kind of … the more darker side, too,” Turpin said. “We all kind of get along, and it’s all good.”

The Cured has also discovered some surprising audiences. Rock ‘n’ roll journalist Chuck Klosterman, an author and magazine writer, found the number of Latino fans who flocked to see former Smiths singer Morrissey in Los Angeles interesting. Along with Depeche Mode, Morrissey and the Cure form a kind of holy trinity among an unlikely demographic.

“It surprised us when we saw how many of the Latino crowds (turned out),” Turpin said.

One of the Cure’s original members paid the Cured a surprise, joining in a show with other ’80s tribute acts June 21 in front of 6,000 fans at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. Lawrence “Lol” Tolhurst, who co-wrote some of the Cure’s early hits, joined in for four songs, and all involved had to explain to some of the younger fans that they weren’t the original band.

“He also commented that we sound more like the Cure than the Cure,” Turpin said, explaining that advances in technology allow the Cured to replicate the techniques the Cure used in the studio but couldn’t translate onstage.

That should resonate with other fans who know the Cure’s output but haven’t seen the band perform live. As a primer, Twombly and Turpin recommended some Cure discs to get up to speed before the tribute act makes its Tahoe debut Saturday, July 19, at Elevation: “Staring at the Sea,” “The Head on the Door,” “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” and everything up to “Wish.”

In addition to starting punk rock karaoke Wednesday nights — the first of which drew 50 to Elevation, the second three times as many — the restaurant still plays host to An Art Party every Monday. On July 14, Turpin and Twombly spoke to Lake Tahoe Action over the strains of a kilted bagpipe player. They joked that he might be the new member of the Cured.

Don’t be surprised.

If You Go Who: the Cured (the Cure Experience) What: the Cure cover band When: 10 p.m. Saturday, July 19 Where: Elevation 6130 Cost: $5