Nick Cave recognises the versatility at the heart of rock'n'roll. As the legend walked on-stage with The Bad Seeds, the mood hung in the Entertainment Centre, unmoving.
At 23, Cave was a vitriolic viper. The Birthday Party violently lobbed themselves into crowds, knocked out ivories, and capitalised on brooding gothic textures. At 59, Cave took to this Adelaide performance with a resolute reflection, a point of difference, but with that constant jarring rock laced feedback.
The band eased into their set with tracks from their new record, Skeleton Tree. As Cave poured himself over the piano the punters were unsure whether to dance or not. But Cave waved his hands and led them through the darkness, into Jesus Alone. Amid the pain, he even quipped “that was truly Frank Sinatra.” In the chorus of Higgs Boson Blues, a slow-moving blues-infused crescendo, he chastised a punter snapping videos a foot away from him. “Get your fucking camera away,” he disappointingly said. “Is that what you do late at night with your husband?”
Caught up in the energy of the band's older tracks, the ensemble played Tupelo: a narrative of screeching guitars, nightmarish growls, and angry strings. With Warren Ellis driving the harmonics, Cave windmilled his limbs around the stage and into Jubilee Street. He carefully navigated himself between the piano and the mic, while hanging over the crowd with baritone chops and a complex countenance.
Cave is known for his sensitivity, omnipresent in Into My Arms — a classic Bad Seed song that was chorused by the crowd — followed by Girl In Amber. As the song simmered, the band’s back-up vocals became increasingly more poisoned. To mitigate the obvious pain, punters swayed in collective catharsis; it felt like everyone in the Entertainment Centre felt the band’s heart stop.
As Cave threw his mic beside him, jolted his body into an electric convulsion, and purred into the crowd, women (and men) yelled “we love you Nick”. Unsurprisingly, Australia’s national treasure charmingly grimaced in return, before charging into the hand-clapping The Weeping Song, and the terrifyingly sexual Stagger Lee. And as he sung, “you better get down on your knees and suck my dick”, a lady literally grabbed his junk. His reply: “This is sexual fucking harassment in the workplace." He added, “let’s get a support circle together and hug it out”, which was met with cheers rather than disappointment.
Despite the libido, they ended their set poetically with Push The Sky Away. As their performance began with the sombre, it ended cyclically and optimistically with the looped hook: “You’ve got to just / Keep on pushing”. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds created a night that was sublime, surreal, and fantastically overwhelming.
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