Nick Cave closed this summer’s All Points East festival with a triumphant performance for 40,000 fans in London’s Victoria Park.
Dressed in a smart black suit and white shirt, he led his band The Bad Seeds through a high energy 20-song set from their four-decade career.
Opening with the anthemic Get Ready For Love, Cave told the crowd: “Thank you London, we love you too.”
Welcome back to Victoria Park, @nickcave & The Bad Seeds 🙏
📸 @jrcmccord pic.twitter.com/3vxpSSMpQ1
— All Points East (@allpointseastuk) August 28, 2022
Second song There She Goes, My Beautiful Love inspired a mass singalong, as did The Ship Song and The Mercy Seat, while Red Right Hand, now famous as the Peaky Blinders theme song, received a huge cheer.
When not seated at his grand piano, Cave spent most of his time off the main stage singing to the fans at the front, shaking hands and occasionally jumping in with them to sing.
He seemed to be having fun, at one point handing out roses, criticising one man’s choice of band T-shirt and describing his own Jubilee Street as a “horrible song”.
And he dedicated O Children to his neighbour Esme, saying “it is a great privilege to be her neighbour” – last year Cave wrote a children’s book called The Little Thing for the then three-year-old.
Cave told of someone who wrote to his management company complaining that he and bandmate Warren Ellis had spat on stage as it was unhygienic, adding: “You should see what Warren and I get up to off stage.”
The full line up for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at All Points East, London on Sunday 28 August has now been announced including special guests The Smile. Tickets on sale now: https://t.co/Umc1cD45Ya
— Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (@nickcave) May 31, 2022
And in Higgs Bosun Blues he lead the crowd in a chant of “Hannah Montana” before crooning “Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Taluca Lake”.
After his regular encore of Into Your Arms solo at the piano and Vortex, the band return to play Ghosteen Speaks, before Cave said they had time to play one more, giving the jubilant crowd a rare rendition of The Weeping Song.
“Thank you London, thank you for coming along, you’ve been really beautiful,” Cave said, before finally leaving the stage after some two-and-a-half hours
Other artists to play on the final day of the festival included Michael Kiwanuka, The Smile, the new band formed by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Kae Tempest and Sleaford Mods, whose singer Jason Williamson also joined Aldous Harding on stage.
The six-day festival began on August 19 with Gorillaz, while the other headliners were Tame Impala, The National, Disclosure, and the Chemical Brothers and Kraftwerk.