Robert Smith pauses only once. The Cure’s two-hour-plus set is laden with hits, but it’s after “Just Like Heaven” that he chooses to have a rare word with the crowd. “I like hearing people sing the words back. Makes me think I could get away with stopping, if I wanted.”
But there’s no suggestion that he might follow through on that in front of 30,000 people in suburban south Manchester – his band’s biggest-ever show in the city by a distance. This is only The Cure’s fourth UK gig since they released Songs of a Lost World in 2024 – their first new album in sixteen years, and one of their best, if the raft of five-star reviews are anything to go by.
On stage is where the band really come to life, though, playing sets like Friday night’s, epic affairs that please everybody, finding room for everything from the obscure (“Secrets”, the heartbreaking nineties deep cut “Treasure”) to indie classics (“Friday I’m in Love”, “The Lovecats”). This has been their modus operandi for years, but only recently has it made them consumer champions, with Smith railing against Ticketmaster on their last US tour and succeeding in stripping away dynamic pricing, banning marked-up resales, and ensuring that the cheapest tickets were available at an inflation-busting rate of $20.
