Nick Cave reflects on Preston Park show, "the largest ticketed event in Brighton’s history"
5 August 2026, 17:21 | Updated: 5 August 2026, 17:29
The Into My Arms singer took to his Red Hand Files website to respond to a fan and share his thoughts on the milestone semi-homecoming show.
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Nick Cave has reflected on his huge Brighton show with The Bad Seeds at Preston Park last week.
The band took to the stage on Friday 31st July, playing a homecoming set to over 50,000 fans in Cave's adopted home city of 20 years.
The gig - which saw supporting sets from The Flaming Lips, English Teacher, Cate Le Bon and Warmduscher - was preceded by a surprise show at Resident Records in Brighton on the same day, which saw excited crowds gather to North Laine on Friday morning.
Cave has since shared an August issue of his Red Hand Files, which sees him interact with his fans by answering their questions on everything from his song lyrics to how he's dealt with grief.
Quizzed by an "emotional" Claire Ellington how he felt after the "extraordinary" Brighton show, Cave wrote a thoughtful reflection the morning after the gig in which he'd admitted he'd had "very late night' and "little sleep".
Cave revealed he had just received a call from his manager telling him "that last night’s show was the largest ticketed event in Brighton’s history".
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He went on to praise The Bad Seeds asserting: "... It was difficult to 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."
The Into My Arms singer went on: "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. They are a force to behold, and it is a sheer privilege to share a stage with them."
He added: "The Bad Seeds are the greatest band a singer could hope to work with."
The night saw Cave joined on stage by Kylie Minogue, with the pair performing their Where the Wild Roses Grow duet together for the first time since 2018.
"Kylie Minogue joined us on stage last night, dressed in a white lace gown made by Susie," he said. "She arrived as a vision, an apparition, emerging from the past to touch us all, a performer who only gives, gives and gives, then retreats, as ghosts and great performers do."
Cave went on to thank his fans who attended the concert, which he referred to as "a homecoming in many different ways".
Though he admitted that part of him is relieved the show is over, because sometimes his job is "so completely and emotionally overwhelming," he added: "I’m happy we could, for a delirious moment in time, create a place where the absent and the present could dance together."
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds played a triumphant 19-song set, which included Wild God - from their most recent album of the same name, From Her to Eternity, Tupelo, Red Right Hand, The Weeping Song, Jubilee Street, and Into My Arms.
See their full setlist here:
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at Preston Park, Brighton on 31st July 2026:
1. Get Ready for Love
2. From Her to Eternity
3. Train Long-Suffering
4. Wild God
5. O Children
6. Tupelo
7. Carnage (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis cover)
8. Joy
9. Rings of Saturn
10. Where the Wild Roses Grow (with Kylie Minogue) (First time since 2018)
11. The Mercy Seat
12. Papa Won't Leave You, Henry
13. Red Right Hand
14. The Weeping Song
15. Jubilee Street
16. Hollywood
Encore:
17. City of Refuge
18. Wide Lovely Eyes
19. Into My Arms
