First, let me get this straight: I've seen Nick Cave seven times over the years. Like most of Melbourne, I love the guy. His performances are always stunning, and his music can shift from the spiritually moving to electrically energizing.
Warren Ellis is also an old favourite. He used to be in a band called the Dirty Three and is famous for his violin. The two of them have worked creatively together for a long time and are good friends too.
They played at the Palais in St Kila, which has been a music hall since the '60's (it was built in the '20's I think) and they've spent millions renovating it. It's lovely inside, but as far as venues go, it's not my favourite. Still, I've seen a few bands here - Nirvana, Holy Fuck, The Breeders, Ry Cooder, and a few others.
So to catch them on this tour was a yes from me. It was the first time he had been to Australia in a few years due to COVID. I wasn't overly keen on the Palais, but beggars can't be venue choosers I suppose!
Most of the songs he played were from Ghosteen and Carnage, his last two albums. Ghosteen is an ode really to his son who died falling off a cliff at only 15 - Cave says the spirit of his son resides within it. It's one of those albums you have to listen to a few times to really get it, but when you do it's achingly beautiful. On stage it's visceral, metaphysically populated by horses and angels.
Every road is lined with animals
That rise from their blood and walk
Well the moon won't get a wink of sleep
If I stay all night and talk, if I stay all night and talk (Ghosteen)
The bright horses have broken free from the fields
They are horses of love, their manes full of fire
They are parting the cities, those bright burning horses
And everyone is hiding, and no one makes a sound
And I'm by your side and I'm holding your hand
Bright horses of wonder springing from your burning hand
(Bright Horses)
Three amazing backing singers joined him on stage too - that was a first for me. They lend an otherworldly atmsophere too. But it is always Nick's energetic, charismatic and wonderful on stage presence that draws me in. From his quieter piano pieces to the more frenetic and loud 'Hand of God' where he walked into the audience, he was just classic Nick Cave, the conductor of his own creative art form.
There are loops of lyrics and sound - the breathless, heady repetitions of lines that echo grief and loss, longing and heartache, but also incredible love and beauty. At one stage, for 'I Need You', he chants 'just breathe, just breathe' over and over til it fades out across the hall, eddying round the spotlight like fireflies.
He did do a cover of T-Rexs Cosmic Dancer which I enjoyed. Warren Ellis did a of a solo with his violin - jump to 4.44 in the video above as it's from the same tour - lifting his legs to fold his body into a kind of boat pose - now that's some good core right there. If there's one bone I could pick with the concert is that there wasn't enough of him and the violin.
The white hunter sits on his porch
With his elephant gun and his tears
He'll shoot you for free if you come around here
A protester kneels on the neck of a statue
The statue says, "I can't breathe"
The protester says, "Now you know how it feels"
And he kicks it into the sea
I was also pleased he did a couple of old songs too - 'Breathless' was a little lack lustre (one because the audience loves it) but beautiful, and I have heard more rousing renditions of 'Straight to You'. When we heard it at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl the entire audience sung it without being asked - a choir of voices filling a starry night in one of the most magical things I've ever seen. Still, it's a beautiful song and my heart soared with it.
He also did 'Jubilee Street' which was fabulous, and a crowd pleasing murder ballad with 'Henry Lee' but I found myself longing for 'Stagger Lee' and a few of his more energetic crazy songs. Still, I loved being enraptured by the songs of his later albums because they were so goddamn heartfelt.
One thing that drove me a little nuts though was the venue and audience. I can't understand why people would want to go to a gig like that and drink beers so that they had to keep getting up and going to the toilet. It was making me dizzy as people were up and down like the waves on the ocean, and the chicks in front of us kept talking and filming it, so much so that a woman told them to stop it as they were spoiling it for everyone else. I've not had such a shitty experience like that at a Cave gig before so I was getting a little irate.
Still, Nick!
It really wasn't a bad thing to wake up to not one but two Cave songs in my head, alternating in stereo in kind of a mash up. My brain will do that sometimes, music swirling around my head. I really don't mind if it's Nick.
Yeah, I'll go see him again. Just not at the Palais.
With Love,
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