The Cure will perform in the headline slot of the Rock en Seine festival in August next year.
The five-day festival has rolled out its first announcement, with the Robert Smith-fronted group confirmed for a return to Rock en Seine. The Cure last played the festival in 2019 with a hits-heavy set which delighted attendees at the time. Rock en Seine’s first festival announcement for next year has since gone viral, with thousands sharing their delight at The Cure being announced as the first headliner for next year. The Cure will perform at Rock en Seine on August 30, 2026. An announcement for The Cure’s headline slot was shared by the Rock en Seine Instagram account, which announced the “beautiful, big” show for next year.
Their statement reads: “FIRST ROCK ANNOUNCEMENT IN SEINE 2026. BOOOOOOOM. Seven years after their historic show in 2019, The Cure return to the Rock en Seine stage to close in style on Sunday, August 30, 2026.
“Forty years of career, fourteen studio albums and still this amazing energy! It’s gonna be beautiful, it’s gonna be big, it’s going to be pure Rock en Seine.” It comes after The Cure had hoped to tour their latest album Songs of a Lost World, in autumn this year. While it doesn’t appear tour dates are forthcoming for a proposed 2025 tour, the band will be gearing up for shows across Europe in 2026.
It’s another show in an already busy 2026 for Robert Smith and the band, with the frontman confirmed as the new ambassador for Teenage Cancer Trust. Teenage Cancer Trust founder Roger Daltrey confirmed Smith’s role next year.
He said: “It has not been easy to find the right curator for the week of concerts in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall, but it’s with great excitement that I can announce that Robert Smith has signed up for 2026.
“With The Cure’s long and outstanding support for Teenage Cancer Trust, Robert appreciates the vital work this charity does. The concerts have become an essential fixture in the music calendar, featuring some of the world’s greatest artists. It has been a challenge to find the right person to take them on – but Robert, a true musical great, is the perfect curator for the 2026 concerts.”
The Cure may also have another album ready ahead of their Rock en Seine return, with Smith suggesting another release from the band may be ready by summer next year. Speaking to John Kennedy at Radio X, Smith confirmed new material was on the way and that all he needed to do was “mix it”.
He said: “The companion piece to Songs Of A Lost World, which will be out hopefully before next summer, is what I’m currently finishing. I just need to mix it.
“It’s not as dark in some ways, although it actually has probably the saddest song of all of them on it. It has a couple of songs that we were playing live which didn’t make it onto Songs Of A Lost World and it has some completely new stuff that no one’s ever heard. But it’s probably more varied, I think.”
