| |
Whiskyfun
Home
(Current
entries)
Concert
Review
Index
(All Reviews
Since 2004)
Leave
feedback
 |
Copyright
Nick Morgan and crew
|
|
|
Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
|
 |
 |
|
NICK
CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS |
| The
Hammersmith Apollo, London, May 7th 2008 |
| What
is it about punctuality, Serge? We learned, without
too much difficulty, that Mr Cave and his Bad Seeds
would take the stage around 8.45pm. We ate a wonderful
supper in the evening sunlight (yes, that
vegetarian place again, but in case you’re
wondering, it’s vegetarian food for meat eaters,
not your miserable “I’ve got another
cold”, Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing, social-working,
lentil-eating, fun-hating veggies). |
| And
we were comfortably in our seats in time to catch
the end of crooner Barry
Adamson, perfectly positioned for the start.
But why was the place half empty? Why did the witless
continue to wander in, aimlessly looking for their
seats, clutching the inevitable two or three plastic
pint glasses of plastic pints of lager, until almost
9.15? Is this the i-Pod generation? The morons who
don’t seem to understand that, in the same
way that an album is an album, created to be heard
from start to finish, a set is a set, crafted and
executed in the same way? Who don’t seem to
care if they disturb the concentration of others
as they wander about from row to row, wrong seat
to wrong seat? And who insist on going back for
more and more ‘beer’, interspersed with
more and more trips to the pisser, for the whole
night? It can get you down, Serge – particularly
when for all its violence, volume and histrionics,
this eventually brilliant set deserved all the attention
one could give it. |
| If
Nick
Cave was a waiter, leaning at the door
of his restaurant in his dark jacket, flared purple-striped
trousers, with his absurdly black mane (“I’ll
dye it ‘till I die” he recently told
an interviewer), and the sort of moustache you only
see in photofit pictures of child molesters, then
I’m sure you wouldn’t go in. Even more
so if you saw the kitchen staff – led by Warren
Ellis, whose beard makes him look like a cross between
one of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs and a ZZ
Top cast off. He’s surrounded by a junkshop
of three of his miniature guitars – more properly
Fender Mandocasters, violins in cases and pedals
galore. |
 |
| Drummer
Jim Sclavunos
has shaved his off, but don’t let the smooth
face and the pink drum kit fool you – he’s
as mean with his sticks as ever. Melodious Mick
Harvey is relegated to drums and keyboards for
much of the evening, only occasionally picking up
his guitar. Martyn Casey is menacing and motionless
on bass. Conway
Savage crouches over his keyboards and looks
frankly as though he just been let out of somewhere
serious. Thomas Wydler, white-shirted at his drums
with his brushes and delicate sweeps seems out of
place. This is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds post
the Grinderman
project, touring their new album Dig Lazarus Dig!!!
It’s a stripped-back collection of songs,
with all the roughness of Grinderman (even more
live, as it turns out) and devoid of the painfully
tender romanticism that can inform Cave’s
works (‘though he does play ‘Into my
arms’ as one of the final encores of the night)
and ‘though the lyrics are wonderfully dark,
humorous and brilliantly constructed, they contain
none of the lyricism of the Boatman’s Call,
or for that matter, Abattoir Blues and the Lyre
of Orpheus. |
 |
Contemporary
Mandocaster (not an original Fender from the 1960's) |
| Cave
plays guitar (although he doesn’t change chords
too often) , occasionally hits the keys of his organ
to some effect (when it’s working) and most
of all stalks the front of the stage, jumping, karate
kicking and dancing (as I have said before) like
Scott Walker’s ‘singer with a Spanish
bum”. Leaning forward over the audience, he
casts a manic shadow on the sidewalls of the theatre,
sometimes menacingly like a madman, occasionally
and bizarrely like comedian Max Wall (it must be
that hair). And after the first three songs –
‘Night of the Lotus Eaters’, ‘Dig
Lazarus dig!!!’ and oldie ‘Tupelo’,
he’s prepared to lean forward and start chatting
with the fans at the front. “Better start
the song Nick” interrupts Harvey, as they
break into ‘Today’s lesson’ –
featuring a charming cast of characters including
“Mr Sandman the inseminator”, whose
lascivious behaviour allows Cave to shower the audience
with parodic pelvic thrusts, which even, unless
I’m much mistaken, bring a slight flush to
the cheeks of the Photographer. It’s a well-constructed
set, mixing the new album’s material artfully
with older songs. There’s ‘Moonland’,
and ‘Jesus of the moon’ (one of the
more restrained songs) from Dig!! interspersed with
‘The ship song’ and ‘I let love
in’. And while ‘Red right hand’
provides the first blasting crescendos of the night
it’s surpassed in sheer mad exuberance by
‘We call upon the author’ in which Cave
launches a literary-reference filled assault on
the modern world “Mass poverty, third world
debt, infectious diseases, global inequality and
deepening socio-economic division (It does in your
brain!)” – before returning to the refrain
“Prolix, prolix, nothing that a pair of scissors
can’t fix”. And all of this while Ellis,
normally happy with his back to the audience but
tonight displaying almost rock-star behaviour, is
rolling on the floor on his back making the most
tremendous feedback- fuelled din. Fantastic! |
| The
first encore begins with a grungy ‘Get ready
for love’ (“This is destined for disaster,
as all the great songs are“ says Cave), after
which they give ‘The lyre of Orpheus’
a heavy dose of the Sham 69 treatment. During ‘Hard
on for love’ (which with a typical incongruity
features the real Lazarus and the Book of Leviticus),
the stage monitors fail and as the band wait for
the fault to be fixed, some of the crowd at the
front quickly break into a slow hand clap. This
is quickly diffused by Cave who, to applause, stands
on the edge of the stage and shares his four-lettered
Anglo Saxon views on the ungratefulness of London
audiences with the ****s. Quite right too. Speakers
fixed, the stage is bathed in blood, gore, as much
fucking fucking bad language as you can fucking
imagine, and yet more screeching and feedback for
‘Stagger Lee’, built of course around
Casey’s imperturbable bass line and Sclavunos’
power drumming. Then it’s another break (more
cigarettes at the stage door?) before ‘Into
my arms’, and Cave’s take on Johnny
Cash’s ‘Wanted man’. |
 |
It’s
exhilarating, thrilling, tinged with danger, probably
something your mother wouldn’t approve of,
and all those other critical things which go to
make up a great gig. And while the music is stripped
back, there’s no lack of talent on display,
from all of the band. It’s clever and accomplished
and fiercely executed. Another Bad Seeds triumph
from Mr Cave. - Nick Morgan (concert photograph
by Kate)
Listen:
Nick
Cave's MySpace page
Conway
Savage's MySpace page (excellent! -S.) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
|
|
|
|
|
There's nothing more down there... |
|
|
|
|
