The Cure returned to the stage last night and used Primavera Sound 2026 in Barcelona to do something fans had been waiting on since November 2024: pull rare songs back into a set that reached across nearly five decades. Robert Smith and the band headlined the festival at Parc Del Forum and gave the crowd a first live look at material they had not played in years.
That is why the name Robert Smith is drawing attention now. The show came after Songs Of A Lost World, the band’s November 2024 release that became their first UK number one in 32 years and earned them their first Grammys, but The Cure only played two tracks from it. Instead, the set leaned hard on older material, with Smith steering the night toward deep cuts and familiar favorites rather than a full celebration of the new record.
The return mattered because it was The Cure’s first performance since their intimate November 2024 show at London’s Troxy and the first since multi-instrumentalist Perry Bamonte died in December. Onstage with Smith were Simon Gallup, Jason Cooper, Roger O’Donnell, Reeves Gabrels and Eden, Gallup’s son, who joined the lineup for the Barcelona date. Smith also paused long enough to read, “Por desgracia, todavía no puedo hablar español,” from a strip of paper before adding, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m here all week,” then moving into “Lullaby.”
The setlist delivered the kind of detail hardcore fans track closely. “Mint Car” came back for the first time in a decade, “alt-end” for the first time since 2018, and “2 Late” and “Wrong Number” for the first time since 2019. Smith also played his double flute for “Burn,” another sign the band wanted the night to feel like a return to form rather than a routine festival slot.
What happens next is still partly open. The Cure have more European festival dates lined up this summer, and they recorded a promised followup to Songs Of A Lost World last year, but there is still no word on a North American return. For now, Primavera Sound 2026 is the clearest sign that the band is back in circulation and willing to reach deep into its archive to prove it.
