REVIEW: Nick Cave Turns Grief Into Gospel In Melbourne

“Fuckkk *gag*,” I muffle through a bite guard and a numb mouth.

“You’re doing great Mickey,” coos a dental assistant.

I’m in the midst of getting a crown on my left, upper second premolar and trying to distract myself from the king hit / uppercut combination of an imminent medical bill and current medical drill.

My airpods are in and I’m listening to a perfectly fine song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Triple R’s Biggsy back announces it: “That was ‘Today’s Lesson’ from 2008 album Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are playing in Alexandra Gardens this weekend.”

In my altered, local anaesthetic state I’m still able to critique the song piping into my ear canals: there’s essentially nothing wrong with Today’s Lesson but the stakes are low.

Why? Because in Nick Cave lore it’s from the Before Time.

Before things changed irrevocably with the tragic loss of two of his songs: Arthur and Jethro.

Since then the work he has given us has been presented through the lens of someone living through every parent’s worst nightmare, having their kids die young.

The albums Skeleton Tree, Ghosteen, Carnage and Wild God all reckon with grieving and how to cope with what this sometimes beautiful, often dastardly universe throws at us.

The procedure is done, I rinse out the blue fluoride, dribbling like a newborn, walk gingerly out of the room and wince as my credit card scans $2180.

Tonight is effectively a homecoming, Cave was brought up in Warracknabeal, 339 kilometres north west of where I’m now standing, seven hours later, front left of a stage glowing red with WILD GOD across LED screens. Interestingly, Cave has admitted to having the most nerves when he plays in Melbourne.

FAN FOOTAGE: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: ‘Shivers’ | Live At Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne 2026

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Shivers. Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne, Feb 1, 2026.

The sun is still out as Our Nick – looking sharp in a black two piece suit, a white shirt unbuttoned low and what he describes when he looks up at the screen as “great hair” – leads his ever-changing Bad Seeds onto stage into a hard launch of Frogs while bats fly by.

“Fucking Melbourne!” he roars. “It seems like we’ve been on this odyssey to get here. We’ve been bitten by spiders in Brisbane.”

His 9-piece band locks in, they’re as committed to the bit as their peerless leader. Frogs conjures a chimerical, woozy energy, Cave’s crazed preacher voice sails over us: “The children in the heavens jumping for love.”

Wild God sounds indulgent and silly and magnificent all at the same time, part Dr Suess part Billy Graham. Cave is a man who stared long into the abyss, won the blinking contest and returned a more complete artist.

A few songs in and now he’s really getting into it, touching the hands and heads of his congregation. O Children sees his backing singers Jae Cole, Miça Townsend and Wendi Rose come into their own. I inform my plus one that the rhythm section is Larry Mullen from U2 on drums and Colin Greenwood from Radiohead on bass.

“No fucking way!?”

Jubilee St is the first properly transcendent moment of the evening, the songs rears up like an Indian cobra, Cave bares his fangs and lets the words flow out of him, hips jutting as he sings: “I’m transforming, I’m vibrating, I’m glowing, I’m flying, look at me now.”

To his left, Warren Ellis’ mid-section is similarly out of control.

He fucks the air and slashes at his violin. “My people!” he shouts, flinging wet kisses to the crowd like a baseball pitcher.

“That was beautiful, such humility,” says Cave. “A little guy from Ballarat.”

It’s all wonderfully over the top and generous.

Cave’s silver Susan necklace is ringed with sweat and glints while he jumps about the stage, thrusting his claws out to the side as if to settle the crowd and fire them up simultaneously.

There’s a slight lull three quarters of the way through the show which is then snuffed out with a gripping, textured version of Red Right Hand, a song about a fictionalized version of Wangaratta.

The encore begins with a number “we’ve been saving for Melbourne about Anita Lane called O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is).” The screen shows deeply moving footage and soundbites of the former Bad Seed member who passed in 2021.

He changes the lyric in The Weeping Song for current times: “A song in which to weep while we scroll ourselves to sleep.” There’s a chuckle from the audience and happy, crow’s feet as far as the eyes can see.

Henry Lee is next and we are not clapping in time.

“They could do this in Perth!” Cave chides. We then lock in with the band.

The show finishes poignantly with the 24^th (!) song of the set as he takes a seat at the grand piano and asks: “Do you mind if we play one more? This is Into My Arms.”

The song hits different for me tonight.

I have a memory of it being played on a stereo as I stood in a starchy shirt and watched a tiny coffin lowered into a grave. It was in Traralgon in the mid-90s after my cousin’s toddler crawled under a safety fence and drowned in a pool.

Stakes = high.

The next day my brother-in-law texts me his favourite parts of the concert then follows up with a second message:

“I feel a bit different today, I guess that’s the whole point.”