What The Cure performed during 28-song set for Øyafestivalen headline show

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The Cure performed a 28-song set at their Øyafestivalen headline show, with the band coming close to the end of their European tour. The Robert Smith-fronted group has performed across Europe this year, with a three-night residency in France and a first-time performance in Lithuania. Only a few dates remain on the band’s schedule, with The Cure set to perform at Wythenshawe Park in Manchester on August 21.

Øyafestivalen hosted The Cure yesterday (August 12) as the band performed hits from their decades-long discography. Songs from Disintegration, The Head on the Door, and Japanese Whispers dominated the set which also made room for a few hidden gems from their debut album and Bloodflowers.

A full setlist for The Cure’s Øyafestivalen show can be found below.

• Alone
• Pictures of You
• High
• Lovesong
• Burn
• Fascination Street
• Never Enough
• alt.end
• Push
• In Between Days
• Just Like Heaven
• The Last Day of Summer
• A Night Like This
• Secrets
• Play for Today
• A Forest
• From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
• Endsong
• Lullaby
• Wrong Number
• The Walk
• Mint Car
• The Lovecats
• Let’s Go to Bed
• Friday I’m in Love
• Close to Me
• Why Can’t I Be You?
• Boys Don’t Cry

The Cure will wrap up their time as a band the same year they celebrate their 50th anniversary. Smith confirmed that the group would retire around the same time the band celebrates their debut album’s 50th anniversary. This would coincide with his 70th birthday, too.

Smith, who has fronted The Cure for decades, says that one musician who came across as “completely free” left him enamoured with music and prompted him to form a band. Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and songwriter Roger Waters also cited the veteran rock star as a huge influence on their work.

Smith says he was just eleven when he was in the audience for Jimi Hendrix’s performance, one of the guitar legend’s final performances before his death on September 18, 1970. The show left a lasting impression on Smith, who chose to pursue music soon after the gig.

He said: “Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free. When you’re nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist — before that I wanted to be a footballer.”

Smith has also maintained that Boys Don’t Cry, one of the band’s biggest songs, has a clear reason that still resonates with audiences. He said: “I was singing [‘Boys Don’t Cry’] at Glastonbury and I realised that it has a very contemporary resonance with all the rainbow stripes and stuff flying in the crowd. When I was growing up, there was peer pressure on you to conform to be a certain way.

“And as an English boy at the time, you’re encouraged not to show your emotion to any degree. And I couldn’t help but show my emotions when I was younger. I never found it awkward showing my emotions. I couldn’t really continue without showing my emotions; you’d have to be a pretty boring singer to do that. So I kind of made a big thing about it. I thought, ‘Well, it’s part of my nature to rail against being told not to do something’.”