Radio galaxies are ideal sites to scrutinize AGN feedback physics, as they are massive galaxies with jets that interact with the surrounding ISM. I will present a detailed analysis of the recent star formation history and conditions of a starbursting, massive radio galaxy at z = 2.6, PKS 0529-549. In the 8.5-hour VLT/X-Shooter spectrum, we detect unambiguous signatures of stellar photospheric absorption lines originating from OB-stars. Comparison with model spectra shows that more than one burst took place in its recent past: the most recent one at 4 − 7 Myr, and another aged ⩾20 Myr. ALMA observations of the [CI] atomic carbon emission line indicates that it has a low molecular gas fraction (∼13%) and short depletion time (∼40 Myr). Most intriguing is the modest velocity dispersion (⩽50 km/s) of these photospheric lines and the ALMA [CI] cold gas. We attribute its efficient star formation to compressive gas motions, induced by radio jets and/or interaction. Star formation works in concert with the AGN to remove any residual molecular gas and eventually leads to quenching.

We present MIR spectroscopy and photometry obtained with CanariCam on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS for a sample of 20 nearby, MIR bright and X-ray luminous quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). We find that for the majority of QSOs the MIR emission is unresolved at angular scales ∼0.3 arcsec. We derive the properties of the dusti tori that surround the nucleus based on these observations and find significant differences in the parameters compared with a sample of Seyfert 1 and 2 nuclei. We also find evidence for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features in the spectra, indicative of star formation, more centrally peaked (on scales of a few hundred pc) than previously believed.