As a teenager I was a late developer. I had pubic hair for teeth and teeth for pubic hair.
In the early 1980s, I had moved on musically from Peter Paul and Mary – although my girlfriend at the time played a great version of Puff the Magic Dragon. I was 25 and dissolute. I was looking for direction. The Birthday Party released The Birthday Party and Prayers on Fire and my life changed. On the strength of the song Nick The Stripper, I booked a ticket to London. At the Lyceum off The Strand I saw Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds play a gig on their From Her to Eternity tour that defied music. Nick kicked the head of an over enthusiastic fan on the stage. Saint Huck himself:
You know the story
Ya wake up one morning and ya find you’re a thug
Later I returned to the UK and bought the album Tender Prey. I played the Mercy Seat on high rotation but understood little. A friend of mine’s mother was dying of cancer, I said nothing but lent him all the Nick Cave music I had.
A few years later I was driving through Perth and The Ship Song came on the radio. I bought the EP immediately and lived that song until 1994 when album Let Love In was released. Live at the Palais in St Kilda, the Cave and the Bad Seeds horse moved two squares forward and one square sideways. It was rich and sumptuous but still ultimately cathartic music. The Bad Seeds became the mightiest of mighty rock bands! A concert unlikely to be surpassed I thought.
The opportunity to see Nick Cave live again never eventuated. That is until this Australian Carnage Tour.
The first three songs are from previous album Ghosteen. Bright Horses is beautifully scored imagined terror. Night Raid is even more unsettling, a haunting musical premonition of disaster. The band is phenomenal led by grand master Warren Ellis and backed by a gospel choir with gold lamé voices. The beauty and happiness of the moment is stalked by Cave lyrics and eventually taken down. Then comes the carnage. First Carnage and then the ranting White Elephant where Nick’s verbal buckshot blasts into the audience. Maybe he would have turned the gun on himself if he hadn’t been saved by the gospel rock of the choir. And the band plays on.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like individual songs – just music building an atmosphere of intuition and feeling, both good and bad. During Hand Of God, Nick moves into the audience touching all who proffer their hands. He is giving and accepting equally. The sound of the band and choir on Galleon Ship is so beautiful you would follow Nick without hesitation on his doomed voyage of love. The set proper finishes with Balcony Man and the audience are invited to chime in with a call and response.
There are many encores but the first, Hollywood, is a highlight. It is long and tortuous, full of dangerous intensity with a glint of potential salvation. It’s as good as anything Nick has performed. Janet Ramus leaves the choir and joins Nick in duet on Henry Lee. Murder Ballads comes to glorious life. There are more encores which mix up the old and the new. There is something for everyone, but Ghosteen Speaks sends wave after wave of grief into the audience and leaves the seats and isles awash with tears.
Thanks Nick for another life changing ride.
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