The thing about Nick Cave shows is their dependability. I have been to more than a few over the years but , in the context of his total tours, but a handful. I have not seen him give less than his all, nor Warren Ellis, nor the band. Cave is dependably the best rock and roll performer in the world and has been for at least two decades.
This year’s installment, viewed from high up in the balcony, did not have the intensity (for me) of standing at the front or even witnessing from on the stage (as once at Victoria Park). But it allowed me to consider what was going on from afar, with God-like distance!
Here is the set-list
https://t.co/nO9NQBylZf Great show
— Henry Tapper (@henryhtapper) November 9, 2024
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(Nick solo)
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(Nick Cave & Warren Ellis cover)
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(Nick Cave & Warren Ellis cover) (followed by band introductions)
- Encore:
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(dedicated to Anita Lane)
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(Nick solo)
It was a great watch but it was not a reprise (as Springsteen sets are). This was not a retrospective of a career’s work for the benefits of sixty somethings like me. We got our favorites , including a stand-out performance of Jubilee Street and a rousing “Papa won’t leave you Henry” as an encore. But we got almost all of Wild God which is as good an album as Cave and the Seeds have ever produced. Joy is the special song of the album , introduced as a “Blues” , it looked back to the dark albums of the last decade but was performed with a new defiance that was noticeable throughout.
It seems that Cave is now ready to move on , albeit in a considered way, though Tupelo, Her to Eternity and Red Right Hand were anything but considered.
The performance included the clumsy projection of random phrases from the song onto the big screens. My colleagues thought this added something, I hope he drops this, it was one of the few points where the music did not speak for itself and how it spoke.
Colin Greenwood (ex Radiohead) standing in for Martyn Casey (recovering in Australia) , Warren Ellis and Larry Mullins on drums allowed Cave the freedom to do as he pleased and he kept things very simple, it was a conversation between him and audience which continued into the never reaches of the vast hall.
In my party we had a 40 year old Geordie, a couple of what we used to call twenty something yuppies from Bermondsey and me. The 40 year old had never listened to Cave before, I sat next to him, he cried several times, the kids loved it in a way they know , but I can only imagine. 40 years stretched across us.
Cave has inter-generational appeal and his songs are not of an era but of a view of the world you either embrace or don’t. In my circle of friends, Cave is divisive because he is an iconoclast that demands you accept him on his terms. This is why he is so much a live artist – last night we were drawn into his world and for two and a half hours there was nothing but a focus on the music and on Cave, he did not leave the stage, there were no costume changes, no instrumentals – nothing that diminished the intensity of Cave’s persona.
So long as he remains fit and Ells and the Seeds reman his band, I think that Nick Cave can rightly claim to be the greatest rock and roll performer in the world.
The Spectator said this about his appearance at Glasgow’s Hydro earlier in the week: “Alternating between sitting at the piano and patrolling the apron of the stage, where he clasps countless hands and leers wolfishly into the pit, Cave brings to mind that volatile drunk left lingering at the fag-end of a house party: one minute slumped in maudlin despair, mumbling weird words about the girl that got away, the next sprung into antic life, unspooling manically, ranting about God. Which is to say, he is never less than terrifically good value.”
Byron
But we read the Red Hand Files and know he’s rather different to that – this seems to be another dynamic of the show. We know he’s the panto king of goth but we’re happy to go along with it, because of those letters.
For those not in the know, Henry means theredhandfiles.com