Not many artists with decades of recorded music behind them would willingly sit on stage, face a theater full of ticket buyers, and invite questions without filtering them first. Nick Cave is preparing to do just that across North America in the spring of 2027, reviving the candid solo setup he first tested several years ago.
Presented under the title Conversations With Nick Cave: An Evening Of Talk And Music, the tour strips away the usual production machinery in favor of an upright piano and an open microphone. The structure is deceptively simple. Cave plays stripped down versions of material drawn from across his catalog, pausing between selections to take unrehearsed queries straight from the floor. There are no hosts, no index cards, and no screeners weeding out awkward subjects, leaving the audience to set the mood and trajectory of each evening.
The concept took shape in 2018 and expanded into a fuller run during 2019. At the time, Cave was searching for a more direct, unvarnished connection with listeners as he worked through his grief following the death of his son Arthur in 2015. He later reflected that walking into a room full of strangers to field unvetted public questions began as an odd, almost desperate gamble. Instead, it turned into a therapeutic encounter, transforming the theater into a shared environment of mutual support.
That live exchange soon found an enduring outlet through The Red Hand Files, the open correspondence website Cave launched in 2018. The sustained back and forth with readers on that platform helped inspire his decision to revive the live format. Cave observed that North America has changed considerably since his previous run of these events, adding with a laugh that he looks forward to arriving with his piano to see what happens and wondering what could possibly go wrong.
Past iterations demonstrated just how wide ranging these evenings can become. A 2019 stop in Nashville, for instance, meandered naturally between the craft of songwriting, religious ideas, bereavement, and the arc of his artistic career. Cave noted in 2022 that these public appearances had become an essential part of his personal grieving process, carried by a reciprocal strength between himself and the room. In 2023, he also underlined the importance of maintaining honest dialogue with people whose perspectives differ sharply from his own.
These quiet, unpredictable rooms will stand in sharp contrast to Cave's recent stadium scale activity with The Bad Seeds. The band spent much of this past year touring behind their 2024 album, Wild God. That run included a massive outdoor gathering at Preston Park in Brighton, which drew nearly fifty thousand people to become the largest ticketed concert in the city's history. The Brighton date also featured an onstage appearance by Kylie Minogue to revisit their 1995 duet, Where The Wild Roses Grow. Cave confirmed in May that The Bad Seeds have also spent time in the studio working on potential material for a follow-up to Wild God.
The 2027 Conversations schedule begins on April 9 at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre and concludes on May 21 at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans. Along the way, Cave has booked two-night engagements at The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, Massey Hall in Toronto, the Boch Center Shubert Theatre in Boston, and Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Single evenings are set for Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Asheville, Atlanta, Nashville, and Memphis.
Registration for presale access is currently open. Presale ticketing begins at 10am local time on Wednesday, November 11, and runs until 10pm on Thursday, November 12. General public sales open on Friday, November 13, at 10am local time.
Stripping an entire tour down to an instrument and spontaneous conversation requires immense trust in an audience. In returning to this format, Cave steps away from standard touring habits, offering an exchange where honesty and uncertainty take precedence over polished spectacle.
