The Cure have announced that they will perform at the 2026 edition of Rock En Seine – marking their first scheduled show of next year and suggesting that a new album could be on the way.
Today (September 16) it was confirmed that the iconic British band are the first name to be confirmed for next year’s instalment of the French festival, and will be performing on the main stage at the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud on Sunday August 30. Visit here to buy tickets, which go live at 4pm BST tomorrow (September 17).
The set comes seven years after they first played at the festival, and marks the first gig since their show at London’s Troxy last November.
That show was in front of just 3,000 fans, and came in celebration of them sharing their latest album, ‘Songs Of A Lost World’. It was available as a livestream, and in attendance were Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong, Radiohead‘s Ed O’Brien, Boy George, Mogwai‘s Stuart Braithwaite, members of Duran Duran, Dr Brian Cox, Chris Packham, My Bloody Valentines’s Kevin Shields, and Pedro Pascal.
Now, with today’s announcement, it is looking likely that Robert Smith and co. are gearing up to share a new album too. This comes as the frontman previously revealed that the band have another new album that’s “virtually finished” – with a third new record also on the way. He has also shared that he wanted to complete one of the new releases before they hit the road again; possibly meaning that a new album will be shared ahead of their slot at the French festival in August.
“Seriously, I have to finish the second album,” Smith said in 2024, hinting that new live shows could begin before this year wraps up. “I decided that we weren’t going to play anything next summer. The next time we go out on stage will be autumn next year.”
Smith also said that he can imagine the celebrations continuing all the way up until they hit their 50th anniversary as a band.
“We’ll probably be playing quite regularly through until the next anniversary – the 2028 anniversary! It’s looming on the horizon,” he shared. “The 2018 one, I started to think about in late 2016, thinking, ‘I’ve got a year and a half, it’s easy!’ And yet I still didn’t manage to get there in time. Now, I’m starting to think, ‘2028, I must get things in order’; so [that’s] the documentary film and things like that.”
The singer continued: “I’m 70 in 2029, and that’s the 50th anniversary of the first Cure album. That’s it, that really is it. If I make it that far, that’s it. In the intervening time, I’d like us to include playing concerts as part of the overall plan of what we’re going to do. I’ve loved it; the last 10 years of playing shows have been the best 10 years of being in the band. It pisses all over the other 30 years! It’s been great.”
The Cure’s last gig in London last year was shared as a live album dubbed ‘Songs Of A Live World Troxy London MMXXIV’, and all of the band’s royalties were donated to the charity War Child.
At the show, they played ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ in full, as well as a run of hits and favourites from across their career. NME was in attendance, and noted: “The feel of ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ with its long introductions and heavy tapestry of sound felt so complete and natural for the band – landing live like an addition to the ‘dark trilogy’ of ‘Disintegration’, ‘Pornography’ and ‘Bloodflowers’.
“As Cooper’s shuddering and monolithic drums brought in ‘Endsong’ before Gabrels’ howling and epic guitar solo, the first set closed as one that will go down in history for fans of The Cure.”
While further details about new music from The Cure is still under wraps, Smith did drop a hint about how one of the new albums could sound last year when appearing as a guest on X-Posure with John Kennedy on Radio X.
“Lyrically, it’s a very long way from being an upbeat album,” he explained. “It has one song of grief on it which didn’t make it onto this album, which is a very, very old song which we’ve been playing for a long, long time called ‘It Can Never Be the Same’. And I think that this next album will have that song on because I think it’s about time. It used to be called ‘Christmas Without You’.”
In a five-star review of ‘Songs Of A Lost World’, NME concluded: “Merciless? Yes, but there’s always enough heart in the darkness and opulence in the sound to hold you and place these songs alongside The Cure’s finest. The frontman suggested that another two records may be arriving at some point, but ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ feels sufficient enough for the wait we’ve endured, just for being arguably the most personal album of Smith’s career. Mortality may loom, but there’s colour in the black and flowers on the grave.”
