Nick Cave will return to North American theatres next spring with his piano and a roomful of questions. Conversations with Nick Cave runs from Vancouver on April 9 to New Orleans on May 21, 2027. The 25 dates revive the format he toured there in 2019, mixing songs from his catalogue with questions taken directly from the audience.
There’s a good companion piece for anyone curious about the piano side of the show. Cave’s 2020 film Idiot Prayer grew out of the earlier Conversations evenings. Writing about it that July, he recalled playing stripped-down songs “with an emphasis on the delivery of the words.” The experience made him want to record them. That thread connects the talk-and-music tour to a film listeners can already revisit, and shows how this way of performing has fed back into his recorded work.
The new run gives that exchange more dates in North America. Cave’s announcement in May 2019 listed 14 events. This time there are 25 performances across 19 cities. Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Boston and Brooklyn have two nights apiece, all on consecutive dates. Those repeat visits make up 12 shows, nearly half the tour. Each room will supply its own questions, so the conversation can take a different turn on the second night.
Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles account for the opening eight nights. From there Cave heads to Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit, then back into Canada for Toronto and Montreal. The last stretch takes him through the northeastern United States before reaching Asheville, Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans. Count the first and last dates and the whole trip occupies 43 calendar days.
Ticket registration is open now. The artist sale and the public sale both follow the clock in the city of the performance. Montreal has its own later start for the general sale, so anyone choosing between the Canadian dates should check the hour as well as the day.
- Artist presale opens November 11 at 10 a.m. local time and closes November 12 at 10 p.m. local time.
- General sales open November 13 at 10 a.m. local time in the other cities.
- Montreal’s general sale begins November 13 at 11 a.m. local time.
The invitation extends a conversation Cave has continued in writing through The Red Hand Files. In the new announcement he says that correspondence has broadened the subjects he discusses with readers. He signs off his description of taking a piano and answering questions with a question of his own, “What could possibly go wrong?”
