Two Australian music icons shared a stage in Brighton, England on Friday, August 1, when Kylie Minogue joined Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds during their concert at Preston Park. The occasion was a performance of their 1995 duet "Where the Wild Roses Grow," the first time the pair had sung it together live since 2019, when Cave surprised the crowd during Minogue's legends slot at Glastonbury.
According to Billboard, Minogue appeared midway through the Bad Seeds' set for the murder-ballad duet. Before the 2019 Glastonbury appearance, the two had last performed the song together during a Bad Seeds concert in 2018, and before that in 2013 and on several occasions in the mid-1990s following the release of Murder Ballads.
Minogue reflected on the reunion in an Instagram post after the show. "I'll forever be your Wild Rose @nickcaveofficial," she wrote, thanking the Bad Seeds and calling it a "wonderful crowd, wonderful night." She also credited her white lace dress, complete with wild-rose embellishments, to Susie Cave, Nick Cave's wife and the designer behind the fashion label The Vampire's Wife.
Earlier that same day, Cave and the Bad Seeds played a surprise rooftop set atop Brighton's Resident Music record store, performing four songs. That set included "Train Long-Suffering," a track from 1985's The Firstborn Is Dead that had not been performed live in 27 years before the band revived it on their 2026 European tour. The set also included a cover of T. Rex's "Cosmic Dancer" that Cave had previously only performed solo.
"Where the Wild Roses Grow" was written by Cave and released as the lead single from the Bad Seeds' 1996 album Murder Ballads. The duet cast Minogue as the doomed Eliza Day opposite Cave's murderous narrator, a stark departure from her pop image at the time. It became Cave's biggest commercial hit, reaching No. 2 on the ARIA Singles Chart in Australia and No. 11 on the U.K. Singles Chart. The song won the 1996 ARIA Award for Song of the Year.
The accompanying music video, which depicted Minogue lying in a river in a pose evoking the Millais painting Ophelia, became a fixture on MTV and helped push Murder Ballads to the biggest commercial success of the band's career.
Minogue is one of the most successful pop artists of her generation. She has scored seven entries on the Billboard Hot 100, including "The Loco-Motion" at No. 3 and "Can't Get You Out of My Head" at No. 7, along with 11 titles on the Billboard 200. Her 2023 single "Padam Padam" won the first Grammy ever awarded for Best Pop Dance Recording. Cave and the Bad Seeds continue their 2026 European tour in support of their catalogue.
