Recommendations of the Editorial team
Tomorrow, Friday (June 4, 2026), The Cure’s first concert in a year and a half will take place – since their record release party for the album “Songs of a Lost World” in London’s Troxy. At the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Robert Smith and band celebrate the start of an open-air season in which they play more headline shows than ever before.
But it will also be the first concert without Perry Bamonte.
The keyboardist and guitarist, who supported The Cure live again after a long break in 2022, died on December 26, 2025 at the age of 65, after a short illness, as The Cure reported. “We will miss him very, very much,” it said on their website. Bamonte was a guitarist in the band’s most successful era – 1992 with the album “Wish” and the accompanying tour.
First concert without Perry Bamonte
Perry Bamonte was seen as a permanent member in many Cure music videos, such as “Never Enough”, “High”, “Friday I’m in Love” or “A Letter to Elise” – without ever pushing himself into the foreground.
The question on Friday will be which line-up The Cure will begin their 2026 season with. The most likely option is to continue as a quintet rather than a sextet – The Cure’s standard line-up for many years. Roger O’Donnell on keyboard and Reeves Gabrels on second guitar get a little more to do.
This performance will certainly be emotional. The space on the right edge of the stage will be emptier than it was in the London Troxy in November 2024. It now seems impossible that Robert Smith will comment on the death of his friend Perry Bamonte. Smith is not a big talker. The band will perhaps commemorate Bamonte in their songs – the ones he liked best: “A Letter to Elise” or “Friday I’m in Love”.