The Cure frontman Robert Smith performed three songs from the group’s 1981 studio album Faith for a recent charity live stream called Letters to Santa. The three songs that were performed are “The Holy Hour,” “The Funeral Party,” and “The Drowning Man,” which closed out the stream. These songs were performed in anticipation of the record’s 40th anniversary.

Letters To Santa is an annual charity that took place virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditionally hosted at the Second City comedy venue in Hollywood, California, Letters to Santa helps fulfill wishlists for families in need. This year’s live stream performance held further appearances from Kim Gordon, Glen Hansard, Sleaford Mods, Jim O’Rourke, Bill Callahan and Jeff Tweedy.

Smith performed each of these tracks alone, with “The Holy Hour” performed with electric guitar and a backing track, “The Funeral Party” performed on synths and “The Drowning Man” going back to a reverbed guitar. Faith was The Cure’s third studio album and continued the band’s dreary atmosphere from their previous release Seventeen Seconds. This pioneering post-punk sound would ultimately peak with Faith‘s follow-up Pornography, which is largely considered The Cure’s landmark record.

Back in February, Smith said that The Cure would be releasing their first new studio album in 11 years “soon,” but the musician has not announced any updates on this project. The frontman made an appearance on The Gorillaz “Strange Timez,” which was included on the group’s latest studio album Song Machine. This record was named one of mxdwn’s top 50 albums of this year.

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat