LATITUDE may be known as a family-friendly festival but that didn't matter a jot to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Anthony Bond

LATITUDE may be known as a family-friendly festival but that didn't matter a jot to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

With their dirty bluesy post-punk rock, the Australian band closed the weekend at the Obelisk Arena with a typically ferocious performance.

Now 51, Cave and his bandmates look like a group who have been on the road for many years and enjoyed all the trappings which go with that.

And when Cave announced to the large crowd that bandmate Warren Ellis was “a bearded ******”, those mums and dads may have considered packing away the picnic blankets and instead taking their children to a more sedate setting.

But they would have missed one of the undoubted highlights of the weekend.

Cave and his lively band rattled through a mix of the old and new, with a number of tracks from his recent 14th album Dig Lazarus Dig going down a storm, including the title track, We Call Upon The Author and Midnight Man, which works brilliantly live.

There She Goes, My Beautiful World, from the 2004 double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus also sent the crowd into a frenzy.

But it was some of the band's older tracks which most seemed to please. With the festival cloaked in darkness, Cave looked terrifying as he sang the violent Stagger Lee and fans where also treated to Henry Lee, the song he co-wrote with ex-girlfriend P.J. Harvey.

Red Right Hand, The Weeping Song and Tupelo were other highlights.

The only disappointment was the lack of an encore from this exceptional band.