The Cure have been announced as the first headliner for next year’s Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium.
The 2026 edition of the event will take place from July 2 to 5 in Werchter Festivalpark and on Tuesday morning (October 7), they announced that Robert Smith and co. will be topping the bill on Sunday 5 July.
“Here we go!” the festival wrote on social media. “We proudly announce @thecure as the first headliner of Rock Werchter 2026. Almost five decades after their first Werchter show, they’re still rocking and inspiring generations.”
Tickets for the festival go on sale at 10am on November 21 and fans can pre-register now via the Rock Werchter website.
It is the latest of a string of major festival appearances announced for The Cure in the summer of 2026, following on from confirmations that they will also headline Open’er in Poland, Øya Festival in Norway, Nova Rock in Austria, Rock En Seine in France, Primavera Sound in Spain and the Isle Of Wight Festival.
On top of that, they have also announced a string of UK and Ireland headline shows for next summer, with shows in Dublin, Belfast, Manchester and Edinburgh. Find tickets here.
While the band shared their latest album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ last year, it looks likely that they will have another record coming out in time for the 2026 live performances too.
Around the time ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ being released, Smith said that the band had another LP that’s “virtually finished”, as well as a third new record in the works. The ‘Friday I’m In Love’ singer then added that he was reluctant to book any tour dates until at least one of those was fully done. With new live shows being steadily announced, it could indicate that a new record is coming in the new year.
The new dates will be The Cure’s first time on stage together since their show at London’s Troxy last November. That gig was in front of just 3,000 fans – including Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong, Radiohead‘s Ed O’Brien, Boy George, Mogwai‘s Stuart Braithwaite, and Pedro Pascal in the crowd.
There are also rumours that The Cure might play a special show at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall as part of the Teenage Cancer Trust gig series. Smith took over as curator for the 2026 edition, after The Who’s Roger Daltrey stepped down from the role.
On top of that, the frontman also added that he can imagine the celebrations continuing all the way up until the band hit their 50th anniversary.
“I’m 70 in 2029, and that’s the 50th anniversary of the first Cure album,” Smith said. “That’s it, that really is it. If I make it that far, that’s it. In the intervening time, I’d like us to include playing concerts as part of the overall plan of what we’re going to do. I’ve loved it; the last 10 years of playing shows have been the best 10 years of being in the band. It pisses all over the other 30 years! It’s been great.”
