Nick Cave has spoken how his huge show with The Bad Seeds in Preston Park was reportedly “the largest ticketed event in Brighton’s history”.
The rock icons took to the stage in Brighton on Friday (July 31), playing a UK-exclusive set to over 50,000 people, celebrating their acclaimed 2024 album ‘Wild God’.
Support on came from special guests The Flaming Lips, English Teacher, Cate Le Bon and Warmduscher, and the set saw Kylie Minogue take to the stage for an emotional performance of ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’.
The band also surprised fans ahead of the gig, playing a surprise stripped-back show on the roof of the city’s Resident Records.
Now, following the stacked set at Preston Park, Cave has looked back at the landmark gig and shared that it felt like a “homecoming” show in many ways.
When asked by a fan on his Red Hand Files website how he felt after playing to tens of thousands of fans, Cave said that he was sitting on the Brighton promenade and enjoying the “near-empty, early-morning streets” the morning after, reflecting on the set. He also added that his manager informed him that “last night’s show was the largest ticketed event in Brighton’s history”.
Looking back at the performance, he said it was a “big day for The Bad Seeds” and added that cannot “overstate the pride I feel in performing with a band that can play the rooftop of a record store in the morning, and then perform to nearly 50,000 people in the evening with the same ferocious intention”.
“There is simply no other group that can summon pure chaos and the most acute intimacy almost simultaneously, and that is both tight and anarchic within the same song,” he added. “They are a force to behold, and it is a sheer privilege to share a stage with them.”
Speaking of how Minogue joined them as a special guest, Cave explained that the dress she wore was made by his wife, fashion designer Susie, and described the fellow Aussie singer as “a performer who only gives, gives and gives, then retreats, as ghosts and great performers do.”
The ‘Red Right Hand’ legend also thanked “everyone who came to the concert” and added that it felt like “a homecoming in many different ways”.
“Although part of me is relieved the Preston Park show is behind me – sometimes my job is so completely and emotionally overwhelming – I’m happy we could, for a delirious moment in time, create a place where the absent and the present could dance together. Again, thank you,” he concluded.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds now continue their tour with a last run of European festivals, and have revealed that a new album could be on the way too – saying earlier this year that they were “messing around” in the studio and thinking about the follow-up to ‘Wild God’.
Since releasing that album, the frontman has featured on ‘Honora’ – the debut solo album from Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, and has also recorded a new version of ‘Red Right Hand’ for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.
