Gallery, ReviewDitch This MagazineFebruary 02, 2026gallery, live, melbourne, Odin Imaging, Nathan Goldsworthy, odin imaging, Destroy All Lines, Gwar, Dregg, Max Watts

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds + Aldous Harding @ Alexandra Gardens 01-02-26

Gallery, ReviewDitch This MagazineFebruary 02, 2026gallery, live, melbourne, Odin Imaging, Nathan Goldsworthy, odin imaging, Destroy All Lines, Gwar, Dregg, Max Watts

photos: Nathan Goldsworthy @odin.imaging

Nick Cave closed his three-night Melbourne run with something that felt final, intimate, and almost devotional — a last exhale after an emotionally punishing and transcendent stretch of performances. This wasn’t spectacle for spectacle’s sake, but a carefully controlled unraveling, where grief, love, fury, and grace were allowed to sit in the same room without ever cancelling each other out. By the third night, the songs felt lived-in rather than performed, worn down to their emotional bones and offered up without protection.

With Aldous Harding setting an eerie, understated tone early, the crowd was already leaning forward before Cave and The Bad Seeds took the stage. What followed was a masterclass in tension and release — moments of hushed reverence snapping suddenly into towering crescendos, Cave prowling the stage like a preacher possessed, commanding and confessional in equal measure. It was less a concert than a shared reckoning, leaving the room silent, shaken, and deeply aware they’d just witnessed the closing chapter of something rare.