Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Live God (Album Review)
Wednesday, 10 December 2025
Written by Jacob Brookman
Photo: Megan Cullen
Nick Cave has spent the past decade evolving from vampiric soothsayer to gothic preacher, and ‘Live God’ feels like the document of that transformation. Captured across the Wild God Tour of 2024-25, it packages Cave’s late-career evangelism into 18 tracks that blur the lines between rock concert and secular gospel service.
The man is nearly 70, yet he prowls the stage with a presence that evokes late-era David Bowie: that same cracked grandeur, a voice weathered by experience but elevated by conviction.
It’s an emphatic reminder that Cave remains one of our most virile and compelling live performers. The newer ‘Wild God’ material — Frogs, Long Dark Night, Conversion — holds its own against the monolithic classics.
Joy probably stands tallest: a grief-tinged anthem whose quiet refrain (“Now is the time for joy”) landed so powerfully that even Bob Dylan publicly tipped his hat after witnessing its Paris rendition. On this record, it becomes the emotional centrepiece: hymnal, communal, impossibly intimate despite the arena roar.
This Bad Seeds configuration — Warren Ellis still the electrified shaman at Cave’s side, Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood adding sinew to the low end, a gospel choir lifting everything skyward — plays with righteous force. They keep the edges jagged, too, and there’s no attempt to diminish a happening that feels alive.
The old giants thunder impressively. Tupelo mutates into an eight-minute stormcloud of Biblical menace. Red Right Hand, forever shadowed by the canals and smokestacks of Peaky Blinders, expands into something meaner and more theatrical than its studio form. But the real heart of the set is the quieter reckoning: I Need You quivers like the original ‘Skeleton Tree’ cut, Cave sounding as though he might disintegrate right there on stage.
‘Live God’ works because it never feels nostalgic. Instead, Cave welcomes his past selves onstage, asks them to celebrate the present, and leads the room toward light. It’s a triumphant reminder that one of rock’s great dramatists still has something urgent, and strangely hopeful, to preach. Definitely worth a late night listen over the holidays.
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Sat January 17 2026 - PERTH Freemantle Park
Tue January 20 2026 - ADELAIDE AEC Arena
Fri January 23 2026 - SYDNEY Domain
Sat January 24 2026 - SYDNEY Domain
Tue January 27 2026 - BRISBANE Sporting Fields, Victoria Park
Fri January 30 2026 - MELBOURNE Alexandra Gardens
Sat January 31 2026 - MELBOURNE Alexandra Gardens
Sun February 01 2026 - MELBOURNE Alexandra Gardens
Thu February 05 2026 - WELLINGTON TSB Bank Arena
Fri February 06 2026 - WELLINGTON TSB Bank Arena
Wed June 10 2026 - DUBLIN Malahide Castle
Tue June 16 2026 - EMSLAND Open Air an der Emslandarena (Germany)
Thu June 18 2026 - EGESKOV Castle and Gardens (Denmark)
Sat June 20 2026 - PRAGUE Exhibition Grounds (Czech Republic)
Sun June 21 2026 - KLAM Burg Clam (Austria)
Wed June 24 2026 - ATHENS Palteia Nerou (Greece)
Fri June 26 2026 - LUCCA La Prima Estate (Italy)
Sun June 28 2026 - ANTWERP Middenvijver Park (Belgium)
Tue June 30 2026 - BERLIN Waldbuhne (Germany)
Mon July 06 2026 - STUTTGART Jazz Open (Germany)
Thu July 09 2026 - LISBON Passeio Maritimo de Alges (Portugal)
Tue July 14 2026 - NIMES Amphitheatre of Nimes (France)
Wed July 15 2026 - VIENNE La Belle Soiree de Vienne (France)
Fri July 17 2026 - CARHAIX Les Vieilles Charrues (France)
Fri July 31 2026 - BRIGHTON Preston Park
Sun August 02 2026 - DRESDEN Filmnachte am Elbufer (Germany)
Wed August 05 2026 - PULA Arena (Croatia)
Fri August 07 2026 - BELGRADE Donji grad Kalemegdan Fortress (Serbia)
Sun August 09 2026 - BUFTEA Domeniul Stirbey (Romania)
Thu August 13 2026 - OSLO Toyen Park (Norway)
Tue August 18 2026 - VILNIUS Kalnai Park (Lithuania)
Fri August 21 2026 - CHARLEVILLE MEZIERES Zanzibar (France)
Sun August 23 2026 - MUNICH Konigsplatz (Germany)
Tue August 25 2026 - BONN Kunst Rasen (Germany)
Fri August 28 2026 - PARIS Domaine National de Saint Cloud (France)
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