Walking on stage in front of 50,000 fans, almost 40 years to the day since The Cure’s first-ever show in Crawley, East Sussex, lead singer Robert Smith jokingly cowered behind his fingers raised in a cross against the sun.

The band launched into Plainsong, the opening track from their 1989 top-selling album Disintegration, and it was immediately clear the evening was going to top what had already been an extraordinary day.

Just a few hours earlier, England’s football team had won 2-0 against Sweden, securing a place in the semi-final. I’m not a football fan in the slightest, until it comes to the World Cup – and then I support England fervently from the edge of my seat like everything depends on them winning. (I’ll be supporting the team Robert Smith-style on Wednesday, from behind my fingers.)

After the match had finished, I’d made it up to London in the sweltering heat by train, and found myself at Waterloo station immersed in the buzz of football fans in red, chanting “It’s Coming Home”, and Pride marchers decked out in glitter and rainbows. Nearer to Hyde Park, goths and rockers clad in black and leather made their way to London’s biggest open space. After living in the UAE for so long, mingling with such a high-spirited, diverse crowd, in such a celebratory mood with all stratas of society represented, was a breath of fresh air.

Performing at the end of a sizzling hot day of music at the British Summer Time festival, Robert Smith quipped, “I really can’t talk until the sun goes down. It’s taking all my energy not to dissolve.”

But the heat didn’t affect their energy for singing one bit: The Cure led us through two hours of nearly 25 songs, including favourites such as ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and ‘Close to Me’. When the sun finally slipped from sight, leaving the city sky various shades of a deepening bluey purple, and things cooled marginally, Smith announced, “There, that song made the sun set.”

The cheering throngs didn’t let the heat get to them either: the crowd loved every moment, and between songs, sporadic chants of the summer’s impromptu anthem – that song again, ‘football’s coming home – echoed across the park.

Towards the end, Smith took a moment to reminisce, referring to the band’s first concert at The Rocket Club in Crawley on 9 July 1978. “If you’d asked me then what I thought I’d be doing in 40 years’ time, I couldn’t have told you it was this,” he said before playing a final clutch of fantastic songs to bring the day to a close.

And what a day it was.