Cure Reveals Rare Deep Cuts at Primavera Sound Headline Performance

{“2 Late,” “Wrong Number,” and “Mint Car”—among the band’s ascendant deep cuts—dominated Robert Smith and the Cure’s first live performance since November 2024 at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival.

The London outfit returned to the stage after an 18-month hiatus, delivering a 29-song set that blended their signature anthems with previously untethered fan favorites. The performance marked their debut showcase for newly unearthed tracks in years, including the “Lovesong” b-side “2 Late,” which hadn’t been played since 2019.

Building momentum, the band dove into alt.end’s “Mint Car,” its first live rendition since 2016, and another archival gem, “alt.end” track “alt. entfernen,” both recorded for the first time since their respective return timelines. The encore pushed further into obscurity with “Wrong Number”—absent from sets since 2019—completing a vintage journey through their discography.

Curating a tight setlist, Primavera showcased just two tracks from their 2024 LP Songs of a Lost World (“Alone” and “End Song”), leaning instead on decades-spanning material to signal a thematic pivot. The set followed closely on their November 2024 return at London’s Troxy, where they played the full Songs album.

Treaty-bound to European summer festivals, the Cure will return to Belgium’s Rock Werchter, Denmark’s Roskilde, and the U.K.’s Isle of Wight, among others.

While Songs of a Lost World remains their most recent release, whispers of a sequel brew amid traces of psychedelic experimentation. All signs point elsewhere, however: Olivia Rodrigo’s upcoming album features a Cure-nodded track (“Drop Dead”) alongside her own untitled cut. Meanwhile, Smith’s vocal chops surface on the Rolling Stones’ forthcoming LP Foreign Tongues, further cementing his stature as an alt-rock iconoclast.

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