Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have kicked off their 2026 European tour in Dublin, and broke out a fitting cover of The Pogues‘ ‘Rainy Night In Soho’. Check out the full setlist and fan footage from the gig below.
The gig was the first of the 2026 tour dates the iconic Australian singer has planned with The Bad Seeds across Europe, and was held last night (Wednesday June 10) at Malahide Castle in Ireland.
Their first UK and European tour since 2024, the opening night saw them break out a stacked 24-song setlist, featuring an assortment of fan favourites and rarely-played deep-cuts.
Opening with back-to-back renditions of ‘Get Ready For Love’, ‘From Her To Eternity’ and ‘Wild God’, Nick Cave and co. mixed things up with the Dublin setlist by playing ‘Train Long-Suffering’ for the first time since 1989.
Other rarities included ‘Hiding All Away / White Elephant’ being aired out live for the first time since 2013, and ‘Stranger Than Kindness’ for the first time since 2015. To close out the gig, Cave covered The Pogues’ ‘A Rainy Night In Soho’ – the first time he has played it with The Bad Seeds since 1997.
The cover wasn’t only fitting as the gig was held in Dublin, where Pogues frontman Shane McGowan passed away in 2023, but it also comes as Cave had a longtime friendship with the late singer.
The two of them collaborated together multiple times – most famously on the 1992 cover of ‘What A Wonderful World’ – and Cave even performed ‘A Rainy Night In Soho’ at McGowan’s funeral, and hailed him as “the greatest songwriter of his generation”.
Find more footage of the show below, including fan favourites ‘Red Right Hand’ and ‘Into My Arms’, as well as ‘Carnage’, where Cave substituted the line “Listening to Sinead O’Connor” for “Reading Flannery O’Connor”.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds setlist was:
‘Get Ready for Love’
‘From Her to Eternity’
‘Wild God’
‘O Children’
‘Train Long-Suffering’ (First time since 1989)
‘City of Refuge’
‘Nobody’s Baby Now’ (First time since 2017)
‘Tupelo’
‘Carnage’ (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis cover) (Substituted “Listening to Sinead O’Connor” for “Reading Flannery O’Connor”)
‘Joy’
‘Rings of Saturn’
‘Bright Horses’
‘Henry Lee’
‘The Mercy Seat’
‘Red Right Hand’
‘Into My Arms’
‘Hiding All Away / White Elephant’ (First time since 2013)
‘Hollywood’
‘Stranger Than Kindness’ (First time since 2015)
‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’
‘Jubilee Street’
‘The Weeping Song’
‘Wide Lovely Eyes’
‘A Rainy Night in Soho’ (The Pogues cover) (First time by The Bad Seeds since 1997)
The tour continues with a show at Open Air an der Emslandarena in Germany on June 16, followed by more stops in Denmark, Austria, Belgium and Italy throughout the month.
More shows in Europe continue throughout the rest of summer, including festival appearances at NOS Alive, Rock En Seine, and more. UK shows include a date at Preston Park on July 31. Visit here for tickets.
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ 2026 UK and European tour dates are:
JUNE
16 — Open Air an der Emslandarena, Germany
18 — Heartland Festival, Denmark
20 — Metronome Prague , Czech Republic
21 — Burg Clam, Austria
24 — Release Athens Festival, Greece
26 — La Prima Estate, Italy
28 — Live is Live, Belgium
30— Waldbühne, Berlin, Germany
JULY
06 — Jazz Open, Germany
09 — NOS Alive Festival, Portugal
14 — Festival de Nîmes, France
15 — La Belle Soirée de Vienne, France
17 — Les Vieilles Charrues, France
31 — Preston Park, UK
AUGUST
02 — Filmnächte am Elbufer, Germany
05 — Arena Pula, Croatia
07 — Donji grad Kalemegdan Fortress, Serbia
09 — Summer Well Festival, Romania
13 — Øyafestivalen, Norway
18 — Kalnai Park, Lithuania
21 — Cabaret Vert, France
23 — Königsplatz, Germany
25 — Kunst!Rasen, Germany
28 — Rock En Seine, France
The 2026 dates follow a homecoming tour in Australia in support of the Bad Seeds’ acclaimed 2024 album ‘Wild God’. That album was given four-stars when it was released, with NME writing: “Bad Seeds records are infamously loaded with gothic doom and gloom. Of course, this ain’t a poptastic LOLfest, and still coloured with the many shades of a life so challenging and weathered.
“But never has Cave been so freewheelin’ than on the giddy ‘Frogs’, “Jumping for love and the opening sky above” as “Kris Kristofferson walks by kicking a can in a shirt he hasn’t washed for years“. With a lust for life, the once-dark prince is letting the light in.”
Last month, Cave revealed The Bad Seeds were “messing around” in the studio with the “vague idea of making a new record” as the follow-up to ‘Wild God’.
“This morning, I am going to Islington to mess around in the studio,” he told a fan on his Red Hand Files blog, saying that he would be in the studio with Bad Seeds members Martyn P. Casey, Thomas Wydler, Jim Sclavunos and Warren Ellis.
