Arusha Baker has been a hardcore fan of the British post-punk band The Cure since she was a teenager. She's now 52.
"How many Cure concerts have I been to in my lifetime? I stopped counting after I reached 100," she laughs.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, The Cure continues to pack out concert venues around the world more than 40 years after the release of their first single. Unsurprisingly, they have a legion of loyal older followers, many of them women.
Yet popular music is often linked to the exuberance of youth, and whenever we think of the female music fan, stereotypes such as the screaming teenager may spring to mind. Older female fans are conspicuously invisible.
So, outside the scrutiny of the public gaze, what do women like Arusha get up to?
"I scream, and I sing, and I dance," declares the enthusiastic concertgoer. "I mean, not like 'Oh my God, there's Robert Smith!'"
Robert Smith is the iconic front man and the only constant member of The Cure. His distinctive goth look – sooty eyeliner, smeared crimson lips, and gravity-defying hair feels incongruent with his almost painfully coy charm. He is in fact the embodiment of the paradox at the heart of The Cure's music.
Writer and music critic Anwen Crawford calls the atmosphere created by their music "the Cureverse".
"They have that kind of pop sensibility, but at the same time, it's often married to a very deep and dark sense of melancholia," she explains.
This mix of light and shade strikes a chord with Philadelphia-based Debbie Milano, another ardent Cure fan, of a similar vintage to Arusha.
"A lot of people think that just because the music is depressing, that it's bad to listen to when you're going through a tough time. I think sometimes it's the opposite," Debbie says.
"In the end it's uplifting after hearing something so desolate, or so sad, or angry. I have to get those feelings out in my own head."
This may explain why The Cure has so many loyal older fans. The trademark songs of brutal introspection in the band's back catalogue may help shed light on the darker feelings associated with loss that inevitably accompany us as we age.
"These days I listen to The Cure differently to what I did in my 20s," says Deanne Kernke, an Australian fan living in Japan.
"One of the newest songs, Alone, it's actually a soundtrack to my life here in Japan. As much as I feel at home here, there's still things here that get on my nerves," she says.
So when Robert Smith sings "This is the end of every song we sing, alone", in what critic Anwen Crawford calls a "yelpy kind of anxious post-punk, white male voice", the angst-ridden lyrics help Deanne deal with her uncomfortable anxieties.
Bobby Boop
Music can be cathartic, or trigger emotions and memories – the experience is deeply personal.
This is why many fans yearn to reach out to others like them, to validate their experiences of the music they love.
And there's every indication that older fans are having just as much fun as their younger counterparts.
Take fan art.
Deanne has created an image that fuses Robert Smith's face with the 1930s animated cartoon character Betty Boop, because the lead singer harbours a fascination for Betty.
"I call him Bobby Boop. Just imagine Betty's cute face, so … the big eyes and the red lips," she says.
She makes postcards featuring Bobby Boop and sends them to fellow fans "as little gifts".
Bobby Boop also appears as a tattoo on her left shin. "I wanted to express my love of The Cure on me," says Deanne, who currently has three Cure-themed tattoos
Portrait artist Debbie Milano has been drawing Robert Smith's face for years. "I've drawn him without makeup [and] with makeup. It's almost like I know his face, as creepy as that sounds," she laughs.
The creative impulse behind fan art is fuelled by a passion for the band. And hanging out with fans who share the same passion can feel joyous.
Brooklyn resident Arusha is determined to capture this joy on film. More than 20 years ago, she began filming fans at concerts, especially those who, like her, go to multiple shows. "I really wanted to embolden fans," she says.
Her unfinished documentary is a celebration of fandom, and will likely include the fan experiences of women like Beth*.
In 2022, Beth used her long-service leave to go to eight concerts in Europe, where she met up with Cure fans from around the world. "They're all different age groups that enjoyed the concert moment as much as I did," she recalls.
For Beth, the ultimate fan event is the live gig because she values the "camaraderie" of the community. "I felt really included in that group."
The darker side of fandom
But what may seem like a warm and fuzzy group-hug has an ugly side.
With millions of followers worldwide, there can be tensions in the fan base, especially over what's considered acceptable fan activity.
For some, fandom is all about the embodied experience of musicians on stage, pounding out music in real time.
At the opposite end of the fanverse are those who prefer the fantasy world of fan fiction, even erotic fan fiction, featuring members of the band.
Perhaps predictably, that's going to rub some people up the wrong way.
Interestingly, erotic fan fiction is consumed primarily by older women fans, even though they claim idolising band members has nothing to do with sexual desire.
"I've never seen Robert as a sex symbol. It goes deeper than that. It's about the music, and how it makes me feel. I've never had that kind of teeny-bopper love for him," Deanne says.
Beth, who's adamant that she doesn't scream at concerts, says "that teenage excitement, it's their sexuality starting to bloom".
"But when you get older, it's nothing like that."
So what is it, if it isn't exploding, repressed sexuality?
"Female fandom, bursting sexuality thing is just an echo of the patriarchy," claims filmmaker Arusha Baker. "They don't know how to make sense of women being excited about anything except for sex."
So these female fans are definitely not trying to relive their youth, but their passion for the music is just as fresh.
And perhaps being older and "invisible" means their fan predilections are less likely to be surveilled and analysed.
It allows them to be free to simply enjoy the music they love.
*Name has been changed to protect her identity.
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