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Wednesday night at Blackweir Fields had everything stacked against it. Thirty three degrees recorded at Bute Park, a red weather warning across South Wales, and a crowd of more than thirty thousand people standing on grass that had baked all day under a sun nobody really asked for. Robert Smith walked out anyway, in his usual full black, hair untouched by the heat, and for two and a half hours he made everyone forget the weather was trying to get in their way.
This was the first stop on The Cure’s UK and Ireland tour, fresh off the back of a headline slot at the Isle of Wight Festival and riding the wave of “Songs of a Lost World” hitting Number One. Cardiff got the opening night, and Cardiff got everything.
Four Decades Of Songs That Refuse To Age
The setlist read like a band that knows exactly what it has built over four decades and isn’t afraid to lean on it. “Pictures of You”, “Inbetween Days”, “Just Like Heaven”, “Lovesong”, “A Forest”, “Disintegration”. Songs that have outlived trends, outlived the people who first heard them in clubs back in the 80s, outlived three or four versions of what alternative music was supposed to sound like. None of it felt like nostalgia though. It felt like a band still finding new corners in old songs.
Smith’s Dry Humor And A Setlist Built For The Weather
Robert Smith leaned into the heat with a kind of dry humor that only he could probably pull off. “Hot Hot Hot” got dragged out for the encore, along with “Burn” and “Prayers For Rain”, songs that on paper should have felt like rubbing salt in a wound but instead turned into something closer to a joke shared between the band and thirty thousand sweaty fans. He thanked the crowd in Welsh before launching into the next run of hits, a small gesture that landed bigger than it should have.
Ten Songs That Nobody Wanted To End
The encore itself stretched to ten songs, which says quite a lot about a band that could have walked off after six and nobody would have complained. “The Walk”, “Lovecats”, “Friday I’m In Love”, “Close To Me”, “Why Can’t I Be You”, “Boys Don’t Cry”. Every one of those songs has been covered, sampled, and played at a thousand weddings, but live, with the actual band behind them, they land with a different kind of weight.
Support Acts That Earned Their Place On The Bill
Support came from The Joy Formidable and The Twilight Sad, both bands hand picked by Robert himself, and both earned their spot rather than just filling time before the main act. The Joy Formidable in particular brought a kind of restless energy that suited the early evening crowd still finding their footing in the heat.
Heartbreak Songs That Somehow Felt Like Joy
What stood out watching the whole thing unfold wasn’t just the hits, though there were more than plenty. It was the way thousands of strangers ended up singing every word to songs about longing and heartbreak and somehow turning that into something that felt somewhat joyful. There’s something strange about that for me, watching a field full of people smiling while singing about disintegration, but The Cure have built a career on exactly that contradiction.
The Rhythm Section Holding It All Together
Roger O’Donnell on keys and Jason Cooper behind the drums gave the set a backbone that let Robert Smith do what he does best, which is stand at the front and let the songs carry themselves. The big screens caught every flicker of expression, every guitar change, every moment where Smith looked genuinely surprised by how loud the crowd got.
Not Everyone Was Having Fun In The Heat
Not every reaction from the crowd was about the music. Plenty of fans took to social media during and after the show to vent about the conditions. Quite a lot pointed out that standing on open grass for hours with a red extreme heat warning in place felt like a lot to ask, even with the extra water stations and shaded areas organizers had put in place. The transport side added to the frustration for some, with rail disruption warnings issued for the same day meaning a number of attendees faced delays just getting to Cardiff before the show had even started. For a band whose audience spans teenagers to people who saw them thirty years ago, the heat ended up being the one thing almost everyone in that field had an opinion on, whether they loved the show or not.
What Comes Next For The Cure
By the time the last notes faded out, people were still singing on their way out of the park, the heat finally starting to ease as the sun dropped. The band heads to Dublin next, then Belfast, with Manchester and Edinburgh dates later in the summer. No London show has been confirmed yet, though there’s talk of something at the Royal Albert Hall down the line.
Robert mentioned earlier this month that a new album is finished, with a second, more upbeat record also somewhere in the pipeline. If Cardiff was any indication of where the band’s head is at right now, whatever comes next is going to be worth the wait.
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