Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Bring The Wild God Tour to Kunst!Rasen, Bonn

August 25, 2026

As dusk settled over the Rhine in Bonn, the open-air grounds of Kunst!Rasen transformed into a secular cathedral for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ The Wild God Tour. Though the album was released two years ago, the tour continues under its banner, bringing its incandescent energy to audiences across Europe.

A Roaring Resurrection

The recent chapters of Nick Cave’s live performances often felt like quiet, grief-stricken vigils processed in public, the Wild God era signals something altogether different: a roaring, defiant resurrection. Backed by a four-piece gospel choir and a seven-piece band, Cave was propelled by the relentless sonic engine of the Bad Seeds. Warren Ellis’s frenetic violin work and atmospheric synths added both urgency and texture, while Cave himself took the stage in his signature sharp suit, radiating an energy that felt less like a conventional rock concert and more like a high-voltage spiritual revival.

The contrast was striking. This was not a performance weighed down by grief, but one that seemed to confront it, wrestle with it, and ultimately transform it into something fierce, celebratory, and alive.

Erasing the Distance between stage and audience

Opening with the powerful and arguably most rocking song of the night, “Get Ready for Love,” Cave immediately set the tone. He descended the stairs onto the narrow runway along the pit barrier, instantly erasing the physical distance between stage and audience. He spent much of the night precariously balanced on the front barrier, leaning deep into the crowd, clasping outstretched hands, and making direct eye contact with fans.

The open-air setting, just steps from the Rhine and beneath an almost full moon, provided an expansive and almost cinematic backdrop as twilight gradually gave way to night. Even the weather seemed to cooperate. After a few drops of rain early on, the clouds cleared, and Mother Nature ultimately bowed to the performance with a near-perfect summer evening.

Warren Ellis, as well as the rest of the six piece band, plus the four piece gospel choir-like backup singers once again proved indispensable. Whether switching between violin, keyboards or electronic textures, Ellis’s musical partnership with Cave remains one of the defining elements of the band’s sound.

A Connection Felt by Thousands

While only those in the front of stage section were close enough to touch Nick Cave’s hands or even hold his microphone while he was crowd-surfing, that intimate connection was somehow transmitted to the entire audience of close to 10,000 people. At one point, a fan even handed him a Kleenex, which he gratefully acknowledged with a loud, “That was nice. So motherly.”

The show was perfectly paced. It is almost impossible to say that the hits were deliberately spread throughout the set or saved for the end, because I’m pretty sure that, for this audience, every song carried enormous weight. Each note and every word seemed to touch hearts and minds from a different angle. Once the concert kicked off, it built a momentum that never let up, carrying the audience all the way to the final note.

Tension and Release

The setlist navigated masterfully between furious, apocalyptic chaos and intimate, heart-rending stillness. The opening stretch of the night was a masterclass in building and releasing tension. “From From Her to Eternity” and “Wild God” to the haunting “O Children” and the thunderous “Tupelo,” Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds created wave after wave of momentum, letting each song swell before exploding with incredible emotional and musical force. It was an electrifying start that immediately pulled the audience into the intensity of the performance.

Then things calmed down, Nick took a seat at the grand piano and songs like “Carnage,” “Joy,” “Rings Of Saturn,” “Bright Horses” and “Henry Lee” drifted into the darkening night. A quiet, mystical atmosphere settled over the audience, the slow track wrapping around them and echoing their innermost feelings.

For a moment, we had a joke when the bass player tuned his instrument. “He’s tuning his bass, that’s something we don’t do in the Bad Seeds, Warren didn’t tune his violin for 42 years.” — Nick Cave, poking fun at his bandmate

Back to the Craziness

With Mercy Street the night flipped back to the craziness again, energy was building. For “Papa Won’t Leave You Henry,” Warren switched to electric guitar and Nick was back to crowd surfing. Tubular bells create the haunting, metallic percussion hook that drives the ominous atmosphere of “Red Right Hand.” Wrapped in deep red light, the stage glows while the crowd chants along, giving the song its own thunderous mini-encore before the quiet settles back in and Nick exclaimed “Yeah! Fucking Bonn!”

It was time for band presentation and for a change “The Weeping Song” found its way to the main set, not left for the encore. “Jubilee Street,” “Hiding All Away,” and a long version of “Hollywood” followed. The tremendous concert reached its climax with an encore featuring “City Of Refuge,” before Nick returned to the piano for “Into My Arms,” a quiet, intimate performance that gently brought the night to a close.

A Full-Circle Moment

It had been 12 years since I last saw Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in the intimate setting of Calgary’s Jubilee Auditorium—a show that had stood ever since as one of the best I’d ever witnessed. Now, on another continent at Kunst!Rasen in Bonn, the larger outdoor stage only heightened their artistry. Refined, powerful, and completely commanding, they proved once again that regardless of venue size or geography, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds remain one of the most extraordinary acts in modern music history.