Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds play ‘Skeleton Tree’ for first time in seven years as they kick off 2025 ‘Wild God’ US tour
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have kicked off their ‘Wild God’ US tour, and performed ‘Skeleton Tree’ live for the first time in seven years. Check out footage of the show below.
The new run of live shows are the first US tour dates from them since 2018. The Group were previously set to make their way to the US back in 2020 but had to cancel their tour due to the COVID pandemic.
Comprising 18 dates, the tour kicked off last night (April 15) at the Agganis Arena in Boston, and opened with back-to-back renditions of ‘Frogs’, ‘Wild God’, ‘Song Of The Lake’ and ‘O Children’.
In total 22 songs were played, including renditions of both ‘Carnage’ and ‘White Elephant’ – which Cave released with Warren Ellis. The main highlight of the setlist, however, came during the first encore, when the artist broke out the first live version of ‘Skeleton Tree’ in seven years.
The song, which is the title track to his 2016 album, was played just after ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’ and ‘The Weeping Song’, and was followed by a second encore that included a performance of classic track ‘Into My Arms’.
Find footage of the show below.
Following on from their opening night in Boston, the band will make further stops in cities such as Brooklyn, Detroit, Washington D.C., Montreal, Chicago, Portland, Vancouver and more across the next month. The dates will wrap up on May 14 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Visit here for any remaining tickets.
The ‘Skeleton Tree’ album arrived in 2016, and was released shortly after Cave’s son Arthur unexpectedly died at the age of 15 in July 2015, after falling from a cliff near Brighton.
Speaking in an interview last year, Cave shared that he regretted recording the record so soon after his son’s death. “That is the only album that made matters worse,” he said. “My mental health was made worse, because I did it very soon after my son died, and I shouldn’t have done.”
He added that while he and his wife Susie Bick have managed to find some happiness again, they will never have “closure” following the loss of Arthur and the subsequent death of his elder son Jethro, who passed away aged 31 in 2022 after he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
For the ongoing run of live shows, Radiohead’s Collin Greenwood is playing with Nick Cave and co. This comes as the band announced last year that Martyn Casey wouldn’t be able to join due to illness.
Previously, Greenwood played with Cave live on his recent solo tours, as well as several dates of the ‘Carnage’ tour with Warren Ellis. Greenwood also contributed parts to the band’s new album, ‘Wild God’, too.
Speaking about working with the ‘Red Right Hand’ singer and joining the tour, Greenwood said: “It’s an awesome group of people to play music with. They’re brilliant and with ferociously loud drummers; what a team. For me, it’s a really fun thing to do because it’s not Radiohead. There are a lot of different colours in the music, so I’m having a blast.”
Of Cave, he added, “He’s such a great story-teller, and I really love his piano-playing. When I took the rough recordings from the new album home to listen to and heard his voice fill up my front room, I thought, ‘What a voice! He’s got the lot!’
“I knew his music of course, but I didn’t know it super-well. I knew ‘Let Love In’ and really liked that record, as well as the previous records ‘Push The Sky Away’ and ‘Skeleton Tree’,” he adeed. “Being lucky enough to watch him work and write with Warren has been a true privilege.”
The tour is in support of the band’s 18th studio album ‘Wild God‘. In a four-star review of the LP, NME wrote: “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.”
The post Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds play ‘Skeleton Tree’ for first time in seven years as they kick off 2025 ‘Wild God’ US tour appeared first on NME.
Liberty Dunworth
NME
