The Cure’s Robert Smith has enlisted Garbage, My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, Chvrches, and more for the 2026 Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concert series.
Smith was tapped to curate the 2026 lineup, taking over the role from co-founder Roger Daltrey, after the Who singer stepped down last year after 24 years. The week-long event will take place in late March and will feature a mix of concerts and stand-up comedy shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The concert series will kick off March 23 with Elbow and Mrcy, while the March 25 gig will boast Mogwai, Craven Faults, and special guest Annika Kilkenny. Manic Street Preachers and the Joy Formidable will perform on March 24; My Bloody Valentine and Chvrches (doing a “stripped back” set) will take the stage March 27; Garbage and Placebo (also doing a “stripped back” set) will play March 28; and Wolf Alice and Nilüfer Yanya will close out the series on March 29.
The comedy night, scheduled for March 24, will feature sets from Maisie Adam, Bridget Christie, Jack Dee, Andy Hamilton, Dom Joly, Miles Jupp, Athena Kugblenu, Stewart Lee, and Dara Ó Briain.
Tickets for all shows will go on sale Dec. 12 at 9 a.m. local time. Full information is available on the Teenage Cancer Trust website.
The Teenage Cancer Trust provides funding to specialized nurses, youth workers, and hospital units helping young people who have been diagnosed with cancer. As Daltrey explained to Rolling Stone in 2013, the organization’s central mission “has nothing to do with medicine,” but connecting young people battling cancer with each other. “It’s a shame that the medical profession doesn’t realize that being comfortable psychologically by being with your own age group has an enormous effect on how people survive treatment,” he said.
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Daltrey has helped raise over $40 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust since 2000, with the annual concert series one of the organization’s highlights. Past iterations have featured performances from the Who, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Squeeze, the Chemical Brothers, Oasis, Coldplay, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, the Cure, Madness, and the Stereophonics.
Of taking over curation responsibilities for the series, Smith previously said, “Teenage Cancer Trust does the most fantastic work, and it is a great honor — and a real thrill — to be asked to curate the 2026 shows at the Royal Albert Hall. I can promise it will be a very memorable week!”
