Nick Cave on stage at the Royal Concert Hall - Photo by Shaun Gordon
Although billed as a solo tour, Nick Cave is joined on stage by members of various incarnations of the Bad Seeds - Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Thomas Wydler along with someone who isn’t the apparent MIA Barry Adamnson - who help flesh out this stripped-back presentation of his back catalogue.
The set covers most corners of the Bad Seeds rich and varied back catalogue, with their latest album, 2013’s Push The Sky Away, getting the most time to shine; and its songs benefit from this semi-intimate live setting too - The band’s loose playing bringing a certain something that feels missing on the recorded versions.
Cave spends the night either perched behind his black piano or stood-up and prowling the Royal Concert Hall stage like a suited and booted preacher with the devil on his shoulder. Accompanied by the band on the majority of the songs, there are moments where he performs completely solo at his piano - noticeably during tender versions of The Weeping Song and In To My Arms, while Mercy Seat still retains its cathartic power. When he leaves his piano to stalk the stage such as during Brompton Oratory, or lecturing like a possessed street-preacher during an intense Higgs Boson Blues, are where the night and Cave’s dark energy burns the brightest.
Nick Cave’s current right-hand man, Warren Ellis, is front of stage, adjacent to Cave’s piano, sat on a chair surrounded by his guitar and violin with various effects at his feet that he uses to squeeze a myriad of sounds from both of his instruments. It’s Ellis’ wailing guitar theatrics during Mermaids that take the the song to an altogether more emotionally frenzied place than it’s album counterpart.
Cave seems relaxed and in good spirits, and at first humouring those in the audience who feel compelled to shout out song titles at the band. But as the night moves on he appears less eager to play along and someone who repeatedly shouts out for Grinderman songs is given short shrift. There is a touching moment partway through were a song is dedicated to a woman in the audience that had recently written a letter to Cave.
The seven song encore feels like a mini-set in itself, of which a grinding, menacing, speaker rumbling Jack The Ripper is a particular delight. Nick Cave and his band end the two-and-a-half hour set with the meditative Push The Sky Away, it’s lyric of “And some people say it's just rock'n roll / Oh, but it gets you / Right down to your soul” perfectly capturing why Nick Cave’s songs mean so much to so many people.
Nick Cave played at The Royal Concert Hall on Thursday 30 April 2015.
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