Wedneday 17th of December
Saw Nick Cave with Heather and John
Great Concert
Hadn't been to The Plenary before.
Nick Cave
opens Australian tour with intimate Perth performance
November 28, 2014
The Fremantle Arts Centre
was the perfect spot for an intimate Nick Cave performance. Photo: Ricki
Barnes.
It was sadly ironic. On a
day when cricket - so ingrained in the Australian psyche - lost one of its warriors, a man who stands
atop an altar of Australian music was here to soothe the soul, in the way only
he can.
Phillip Hughes hauntingly
described himself as a "cricket creed" and his death reminds us of
the tragedies life sometimes delivers. A theme the night's protagonist often
touches on.
So it was somewhat
appropriate for the congregation at the sold-out Fremantle Arts Centre that
their god was in the house.
Nick Cave: Soul-soothing
stuff on a harrowing day for Australia. Photo: Getty Images.
There's always a feeling of
the collective among fans at a Nick Cave concert, and the opening psalm of his
Australian and New Zealand tour saw the usual disciples gather - the devilish
young-at-heart, the pickled parent and her equally fruity children, the red
wine-swilling swayers, the wired, the wonderful and the wasted.
For this tour, Cave
promised to 'create a unique show - something special and out of the ordinary'.
Hell, every Nick Cave gig is unique Nick … but there was something sincere and
special about this two-hour performance that any way it is articulated won't
quite do it justice.
When it was revealed
there'd be no support act on the night ("because Nick wants to play an
extra hour"), you had to shake your head in ritual. You can never have
enough of Nick Cave.
OK so perhaps the band
needed practice. They certainly intimated they did ("Where's my lyrics? I
don't know the lyrics, can you guys help me, we're still trying to work this
out..") before launching into those eery ringing drones of Red Right
Hand, the night's sixth song.
But there was never a flat
spot - as the performance filtered between high-energy prance and dramatic doom
(like on From Her To Eternity and Up Jumped The Devil) to sweet,
spiritual melancholy when Cave sat at the piano for solo, stripped-back
renditions, including The Weeping Song, The Ship Song, Into My
Arms and The Mercy Seat.
Our frontman was engaged
from the start; cheeky and talkative with his audience. He even had a dig at
"my mate" Paul Kelly when a fan suggested that Kelly had said he
couldn't sing (Kelly recently covered one of Nick's songs in a recent Triple J
tribute): "Paul who? Oh that c--t. I'd like to see him sing this…"
before launching into Lay Me Low - "an oldie but a goodie".
And in between all this he
still prowled and preyed, growled and raged like only Nick Cave can, in
customary black suit, weaving waves of love, hope, sadness and enlightenment on
the crowd.
His band (with no name this
time - see below) were tight as always despite admitting they were rusty and
had you frequently on edge - from low-thumping bass notes of doom, eery-choir
keys and the erratic, eccentric, guitar lashes of Warren Ellis (highlighted on Mermaids),
plus an array of other sounds (flutes, violins, shakers) that pulled at the
collective heartstrings.
Most of the setlist was
from the Bad Seeds albums of the mid-80s up to 2001's No More Shall We Part,
with Cave often slowing things a little, while twisting a few original riffs on
the piano - a dark delight for the fans.
It was a perfect venue for
such an intimate performance, made even more enjoyable by being devoid of
douchebags.
And God he ain't but there
is something divine about Nick Cave still performing with such a deep intensity
after 35 years and 20-odd albums. The energy was felt throughout the night -
and long after everyone had left, heart pumping, with a little more spirit,
after this indelible hit of emotions.
The setlist:
1) We Real Cool
2) The Weeping Song
3) The Ship Song
4) Higgs Boson Blues
5) Nobody's Baby Now
6) Red Right Hand
7) Mermaids
8) God Is In The House
9) Into My Arms
10) Water's Edge
11) From Her to Eternity
12) Let Love In
13) Up Jumped The Devil
14) Lay Me Low
15) More News From Nowhere
16) Darker With The Day
17) The Mercy Seat
18) Jubilee Street
Encore:
19) Black Hair
20) Love Letter
21) Avalanche
22) Jack The Ripper
The band:
Nick Cave (vocals,
piano, lives in UK)
Barry Adamson (keys, audio, founding Bad Seeds member,
sometimes-composer for filmmaker David Lynch, lives in UK)
Warren Ellis (guitar, multi-instrumentalist, The Dirty Three, Bad Seeds,
Grinderman, lives in Paris)
Martyn P. Casey (bass, The Triffids, Bad Seeds and Grinderman, lives in
Fremantle)
Thomas Wydler (drums, Bad Seeds)
Nick Cave
review: Solo show with Seeds and classic songs aplenty
December
17, 2014 (Melbourne) Sydney Morning
Herald
Nick Cave: In full flight
on stage at The Plenary. Photo: Josh Robenstone
Reviewer rating:
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
NICK CAVE ★★★☆
The Plenary
December 16
The woman who wanted the
tattoo on her thigh autographed was the least of Nick Cave's worries.
There was also the "motherf---er" who kept trying to pull him into
the audience, and the girl who demanded he help her find her boyfriend.
He handled each
interruption with the kind of gruff, sometimes profane indulgence of a slightly
scary uncle home for the Christmas holidays. Nick Cave and
Melbourne always make each other feel special.
"He handled each
interruption with the kind of gruff, sometimes profane indulgence of a slightly
scary uncle home for Christmas." Photo: Josh Robenstone
A bigger challenge to his
trademark aplomb was the room itself. "It felt like we were going to do a
motivational seminar," he confessed later, after a climactic run of Into
My Arms, The Mercy Seat and Jubilee Street had
mostly conquered the yawning velvet swathe that is the Plenary.
The tender devotional, the
recalibrated Bad Seeds classic, the surreal, shaggy-dog new groove. More or
less on rotation, that winning song combination managed to transcend the neat,
roomy rows and soft acoustics in the course of an exceedingly generous
homecoming set.
Though billed
as Nick Cave solo, there were enough Seeds on stage to revisit
all phases of the story, from the wiry rancour of From Her To Eternity to
a slightly somnambulistic Ship Song to the unsettling monologues of
his latest album, Push the Sky Away.
Soulful: Nick Cave at The
Plenary, Melbourne. Photo: Josh Robenstone
Keyboard cat Barry Adamson
hammered the thunderous chords of doom just right in Red Right Hand, and
a mostly restrained Warren Ellis took Higgs Boson Blues and Mermaids supernova
with a variety of over-amplified assemblies of wood and string.
The fine line between
random horror and a surreal kind of social satire seems to be growing wider
in Cave's lyrics, and he made sure we heard every word as he prowled the
lip of the stage looking for a pair of pretty eyes to dismay with images of
dismembered bathing girls and Miley Cyrus at home.
Then the dark lord would
vanish, and the sad-eyed poet sit at his grand piano to wail the black comedy
of God Is In the House, or to summon the intense romantic earnestness of
Black Hair or Love Letter — the latter elevated by the
extraordinary melodic bass work of Martyn Casey.
He opened the floor to
requests early, albeit demurring on more than he indulged. "We forgot to
rehearse many of the songs, to be honest," Cave told us, not
entirely joking if the odd forgotten line, false start and laid-back
between-song conference was any indication.
No Stagger Lee then,
this time. But the long encore rambled from the mental eroticism of Babe,
You Turn Me On to the roaring hellfire of Up Jumped the Devil and
that bawdy, bloody Greek tragicomedy about Orpheus and his lyre.
The mayhem of less orderly
surrounds was certainly missed. But in the end, the lady with the tattoo on her
thigh wasn't the only fan who got what she came for. In fact, maybe only the
motherf---er who came to see the big man tumble went home disappointed.
Nick Cave at the
Plenary is sold out Wednesday night. Some tickets remain for Thursday.
Shared a house with 4 women who I'd never met before - lots of fun. During the day, while we were away at classes, our lounge and dining room were being used by Cresside Collette who was teaching tapestry weaving . 
Beautiful Halls Gap Mountains all around 
