Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Announce Wild God 2026 Tour of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds will return home to Australia in January 2026 with the official announcement today of their Wild God Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand tour. The run of shows will be the band’s first in the region since 2022 and will bring their acclaimed Wild God album to life for local audiences.

Nick alerted fans to the impending announcement on the weekend.

The tour, presented by Supersonic Australasia, will begin in Perth on 17 January and travel through Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne, before crossing the Tasman for exclusive shows in Wellington.

Tickets go on sale Friday 29 August at 10am local time via nickcave.com.

The Wild God Tour: Australian and NZ Dates

Perth, WA – Fremantle Park
Saturday 17 January (Presented by the City of Fremantle)

Adelaide, SA – Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Tuesday 20 January

Sydney, NSW – The Domain
Friday 23 January
Saturday 24 January

Brisbane, QLD – Victoria Park
Tuesday 27 January

Melbourne, VIC – Alexandra Gardens
Friday 30 January
Saturday 31 January
Sunday 1 February

Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand – TSB Arena
Thursday 5 February
Friday 6 February
(Exclusive NZ shows, presented in association with Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts)

For Nick Cave, the announcement confirms the sentiment he recently shared on his Red Hand Files website, where he described performing in Australia as a “spiritual homecoming.”

“I miss everything, but most of all the Australian audiences,” he wrote. “I miss stepping onto the stage and that singular feeling of recognition, of circles closing, of the natural order of things returning to their rightful place, of big, fierce Aussie love.”

The Wild God shows promise to be exactly that: grand, passionate, and deeply connected to the audiences that have followed Cave since his beginnings in Melbourne’s St Kilda.

The Bad Seeds have spent the past year touring Europe and North America with Wild God, refining a setlist that merges the fresh energy of the 2024 album with defining moments from their catalogue. Songs like “Wild God,” “Cinnamon Horses” and “Final Rescue Attempt” sit alongside classics including “The Mercy Seat,” “Red Right Hand,” “Into My Arms,” and “Tupelo.”

The Paris 2024 setlist included more than a dozen Wild God tracks interwoven with favourites from From Her to Eternity (1984), Tender Prey (1988), Let Love In (1994), The Boatman’s Call (1997), and Ghosteen (2019). Fans attending the 2026 shows can expect a similarly career-spanning performance, with Cave and the Bad Seeds at their most commanding.

Nick Cave has performed in Australia across every decade of his career, each time marking a new chapter in his evolution. From the chaotic energy of the early Bad Seeds tours to the hushed intensity of the Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen concerts, Cave’s return trips have built an enduring relationship with his home audiences.

Most recently, in 2023, Cave toured Australia with Colin Greenwood of Radiohead for a series of intimate duo shows. Those concerts, widely covered by Noise11.com, stripped the music to its essence — Cave at the piano and Greenwood on bass — and left audiences in awe. The Wild God tour, by contrast, will deliver the full force of the Bad Seeds’ expansive and electrifying sound.

Though he has lived abroad for much of his career, Cave’s connection to Melbourne runs deep. It was here that The Boys Next Door, his first band, began playing around St Kilda in the late 1970s before mutating into The Birthday Party and then, eventually, into Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Melbourne remains central to his mythology, making the three-night stand at Alexandra Gardens a symbolic and emotional highlight of the 2026 tour.

Released in 2024, Wild God was hailed as one of Cave’s most vital works in years. It carried forward the elegiac beauty of Ghosteen while reintroducing a muscular, even celebratory energy. Critics praised its blend of tenderness and ferocity, describing it as a work that reaffirmed the Bad Seeds’ position as one of the greatest bands of their era.That vitality has translated into the live shows, where new material has quickly earned its place alongside the band’s most beloved songs.

The Wild God 2026 tour will not just be another lap around the country — it will be a homecoming for one of Australia’s greatest artists and a rare chance for audiences to see the Bad Seeds in full bloom.

Tickets are expected to be in high demand, particularly for the three-night Melbourne run and the double-header in Sydney’s Domain.

Nick Cave has promised these shows will be “wild, big, and beautiful.” Judging by the global reception to the Wild God tour so far, they will be exactly that — and more.

Tickets on sale Friday 29 August at 10am local time via nickcave.com.

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Tagged as: 80s, alternative, Australia, Bad Seeds, Nick Cave, punk, rock