MONUMENTAL is the only word that describes the return of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis to Nottingham.
For two hours they confronted their audience quietly – and occasionally very loudly – with pure emotions.
Cave’s newer music is older, wiser, and sadder, and for good reason. Since the death of his 15-year-old son in 2015, tragedy has been in the background of all of his work.
The acclaimed 2016 album Skeleton Tree was followed by arena gigs, which initially seemed quite wrong due to their intimate music. But his amazing 2017 performance with the mighty Bad Seeds at the Motorpoint Arena was one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen, his controlled ferocity seems to be an attempt to exorcise his grief.
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In 2019, during his solo performance in the Royal Concert Hall, he answered questions from the audience between songs. His responses – to overfans and grieving parents – were witty and wise.
This show was based on the music he’s released since then – from 2019’s Ghosteen, a Bad Seeds album where the entire Warren Ellis band bar is practically invisible, and this year’s even more impressive Carnage, attributed only to Cave and Ellis.
It wasn’t for the faint of heart – Ghosten’s lyrics refer diagonally to his son’s death and its impact on him and his wife, Susie Bick.
The music was burning emotional, disturbingly powerful, with Cave on piano, Ellis on synthesizer, violin and flute and Johnny Hostile on electronics, bass guitar and drums as well as background singers Wendi Rose, T Jae Cole and Janet Ramus.
This brooding, almost atmospheric style probably wouldn’t have been to the liking of some longtime fans, especially those who grew up with Cave’s old Gothic fire – though there were certainly plenty of outbursts of anger.
It started with The Spinning Song, a first trio of Ghosteen tunes before Carnage’s title track really got things going.
Ghosteen’s 12-minute title track is one of Cave’s best compositions. Played in full, it took on even deeper dimensions, shifting from its abstract, poetic words supported by Ellis’ almost symphonic synthesizer to a heartbreaking conclusion with the sad description of a mother still washing her dead son’s clothes.
It wasn’t all doom and darkness, mind. Earlier songs have crept in – a beautiful, piano-led I Need You, T Rex’s Cosmic Dancer, with Ellis’ soaring violin complimenting the melody, and the old Bad Seeds Corker God Is In The House.
Then an explosive Hand Of God started a final sequence of newer songs, all of which far surpass the recorded versions. A reorganized Balcony Man, starting with Cave unaccompanied, finished the main set.
A long encore began with the 14-minute Buddhist parable Hollywood and then included Darker With The Day, the classic Breathless and Grinderman’s Palaces Of Montezuma.
It still wasn’t enough. The crowd didn’t stir until they came back with the elegiac Ghosteen Speaks. Cave called it “a prayer”. Maybe it was the whole show.
Whatever it was, it was a great first post lockdown show for me, the first gig I’ve seen at the RCH since March last year.
And the Bad Seeds and Grinderman are also apparently on their way back. We’ll all see you next time.
Royal Concert Hall, Wednesday September 8th
SET LIST
Spinning song
Light horses
Night raid
Bloodbath
White elephant
Ghosteen
Lavender fields
Waiting for you
I need you
Cosmic dancer
God is in the house
Hand of God
Shattered ground
Galleon ship
Leviathan
Balcony man
STILL 1
Hollywood
Darker with the day
Breathless
Palaces of Montezuma
AGAIN 2
Ghosteen speaks
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