By Darren Lowe
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (Vilnius, Lithuania – August 18, 2026)
Kalnų Parkas, in the beautiful city of Vilnius, Lithuania, is an amphitheatre amidst a parkland with nearby stunning views of the city and, because we are in Europe, there is a castle nearby. Our summer tour here has only a few dates left, this being the only one in the Baltic region.
The crowd is huge, reverential and, unfortunately, wet. This is the first rainy day over the last week of glorious late summer sunshine. I’ve been told this happens a lot. The weather holds out for the over two and a half hours of this mesmerising interactive emotional concert experience.
As my mate Andy said earlier in the year In Melbourne, “David Byrne is theatre, Nick Cave is Church!” Perfect. Through the entire concert we were in the presence of Nick’s sermon; the prowling off the stage, crowd surfing, joking, interacting with the crowd, and moving as one with 10-piece band. Not afraid to try new, or not recently performed material, starting again (“Is that in G minor? Do I come in first?”).
The 21 (!!!) song setlist draws from the breadth of Caves’ work, more so than in the earlier tour, which leaned more towards latest album Wild God.
So, the highlights? After a stunning assault to the senses with ‘Get Ready For Love’, an oft-repeated ‘Fucking Vilnius’ was bellowed to rapturous applause. The band are astonishing.
Warren Ellis, as always, violin, guitar, synthesizers, loops, backing vocals. Jim Sclavunos drums, percussion, and backing vocals. George Vjestica on guitars and backing vocals. Colin Greenwood (Radiohead) on bass, Larry Mullins (U2) on keyboards, piano, percussion, and additional drums, and Carly Paradis, keyboards, synthesizers. Backing vocalists, the Touring Choir, are Janet Ramus, T Jae Cole, Miça Townsend, and Wendi Rose.
Early tracks were strongly featured on setlist. ‘Tupelo’ and ‘Train Long Suffering’ from The Firstborn Is Dead were standouts. The gospel/spiritual themed ‘O Children’, ‘Joy’ featured the phenomenal touring choir. Warren Ellis was, as usual, visually and aurally mesmerising but shone particularly on duo work from ‘Carnage’, dedicated to Patricija all mothers and, of course, there were staples such as ‘The Weeping Song’. Is it just me or is the ringing of bell on Melbourne trams the same pitch as the familiar intro to ‘Red Right Hand’? (I know, that’s really music nerdy!)
I’ve only been here for a couple of weeks, but I already understand how significant the line ‘the Russians moved in’ from ‘Jubilee Street’ feels here — perhaps Cave gave it extra emphasis.
The ensemble is superb: a unified force that is part rock ’n’ roll spectacle, part interactive spiritual experience. A chilling version of ‘Henry Lee’ featuring Janet Ramus, stepping out from the chorus: amazing!
Nick does remarkably well to crowd-surf and perform from the audience in a suit, especially at his tender years! ‘Skeleton Tree,’ which he admitted is difficult to include in the setlist, left the crowd gasping at its fragility and raw emotion. On a whim, the band added ‘Cinnamon Horses,’ with Cave asking again what key it was in and who starts.
A solo keyboard intro to ‘The Mercy Seat’ gave the song even more of an impact with its building crescendo. ‘City Of Refuge’, with its haunting harmonica intro was a perfect opening to the encore.
The epic ‘Hollywood’ from Ghosteen featured the lyrics projected in Lithuanian as a prelude the encore.
Thousands of people whispering the lyrics to ‘Into my arms” has to be heard, and seen, to be believed, re-start and forgotten lyrics adding to audience connection.
Stunning. Fucking Vilnius indeed!
