Nick Cave

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

David Prestipino  Sydney Morning Herald

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

Michael Dwyer

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.