Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have been announced as the first headliners for EXIT festival, which will run from July 7th-10th, 2022.

The iconic rock preacher and his band will play the main stage on July 8th for the 21st edition of the festival. Single day tickets for the 8th are available from today (August 16). Cave played at the festival twice before - once in 2011 with Grinderman and again in 2013, joined by The Bad Seeds.

EXIT was the first European festival to take place this summer after the lifting of Covid restrictions. The Serbian festival hosted 40,000 attendees at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad. Sheck Wes, David Guetta, Nina Kravis, Robin Schulz and Four Tet headlined.

“With this year’s historical edition, which marked the return of major festivals, EXIT proved that the strength of unity and will is bigger than the biggest obstacles threatening to separate us this year as well,” said the founder and director of EXIT festival, Dušan Kovačević.

“We look with great optimism at 2022, when Novi Sad will be the European Capital of Culture. We believe that there is no better way to announce such an important edition of the festival than with one of the greatest rock and roll artists ever,” he added about Cave’s headline slot.

The announcement comes at a time when the music industry in Ireland remains stifled, despite sporting events being permitted to have fans in stadiums.

4-day tickets for EXIT festival will be available for registered fans for a limited time. Registration is available here until Wednesday, August 18th where fans will get the link for the purchase of their tickets upon registration.

General sale will go live on September 3rd via EXIT festival’s official site. One day tickets for the 8th of July are available from today on Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds site or on Gigstix.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds released their latest studio album Ghosteen in 2019. Cave released the live record Idiot Prayer last November, and his collaboration with Warren Ellis - Carnage - came out earlier this year.

"Grief never truly heals, it merely subsides with time. This is an artist laying himself bare, this is art as bleak as it is beautiful, and one can only hope it offers some sort of catharsis - some modicum of relief - to its creator," wrote Hot Press' Pat Carty in his review of Ghosteen.

Listen to it here.