The Cure today announced a pair of Christmas concerts at London’s Hammersmith Eventim Apollo next month, promising two-and-a-half-hour shows that will find the band “playing songs drawn from their entire 37 year old catalogue including deep cuts, pop songs, fan favourites and surprises galore.”

A long-in-the-works Paul McCartney tribute album finally arrives this November, and the first track to debut from The Art of McCartney is a rather faithful cover of The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye” performed by The Cure with Sir Paul’s son James McCartney assisting on keyboards.

It’s well-documented that The Cure likes to play long, even in festival settings. Friday night, the band headlined the BottleRock Festival in Napa Valley, Calif., where they were given a two-and-a-half hour time slot… which apparently wasn’t enough. Check out video of Robert Smith and Co.’s abrupt ending.

The Cure is set to headline the Bottle Rock Festival in Napa Valley, Calif., next weekend, but that won’t be Robert Smith and Co.’s only appearance in Northern California: San Francisco radio station Live 105 has announced it has booked the band for a “secret” show that is to be announced on air at 3 p.m. EDT Friday.

The Cure’s penchant for topping festival bills continues as Robert Smith and Co. were announced this evening as the headliners of all three Riot Fests — set for Toronto, Chicago and Denver this September — joining the band’s appearance at Bottle Rock in Napa Valley, Calif., this month.

Twenty-five years ago today, The Cure released what many fans consider the band’s masterwork, the gloom-struck epic Disintegration — an album that found Robert Smith and Co. snapping out of their mid-’80s pop phase in favor of a darker, more cinematic sound.

Upset by “ever more negative interpretations” of the interview he conducted last weekend, Robert Smith took to The Cure’s website today to explain his plans to finally release the remainder of the music recorded for 2008’s 4:13 Dream, revealing that it will be issued across two different albums.