“I am transforming, I am vibrating!” Nick Cave live in Germany
With all the twilight of the gods and the veneration of saints surrounding Nick Cave’s current live concerts in Germany, is there still enough room for ecstasy? Our author Marc Wilde asked himself this question and attended the concert by His Holiness And The Bad Seeds in godless Oberhausen (09/24/2024). Read for yourself.
Hierophany, according to Romanian scholar of religious studies Mircea Eliade, is the nature of religion and divides the human experience of space and time into two separate realms: the sacred and the profane. If you want to witness a hierophany or simply experience live how profane places of mass entertainment are transformed into sacred places, you have a good chance of doing so at a Nick Cave performance. It is well known that his concerts are more than just performances of music, often resembling ritualistic acts: Bathed in a bright cone of light, Cave performs large parts of his show from the edge of the stage, reaching for the outstretched hands of his fans. One might think he’s distributing blessings. The Bad Seeds stay in the background for the most part and provide a stable sound framework that gives the singer space to shine. The only one who stands out is Cave’s songwriting partner Warren Ellis, switching back and forth between the instruments and playing his violin in particular with full power. In the past, one would have said: a devil’s violinist. His appearance—sunken face, shoulder-length hair, gray beard—also fits in well with the religiously charged overall picture, as do the backing singers with their gospel vocals, clad in flowing robes. In short, anyone who has little use for such opulent staging or for unbroken pathos in art will probably remain untouched by the magic of a Nick Cave concert. Everyone else will find it hard to resist the charismatic stage presence of this exceptional Australian artist.
Photo: Christian Düringer
The kick-off for the upcoming “Wild God” world tour takes place in unpretentious Oberhausen, in the Rudolf Weber Arena named after the owner of a building cleaning company. In contrast to the last stop on the European leg of the tour, which will conclude in Paris in mid-November, at least the venue offers little glamor for a premiere. On the way to the sold-out hall, which holds about 12,000 people, there are many older people on the road. Most of them have obviously been fans since before yesterday and are probably more excited to find out which classic songs are on the setlist this time than to be presented with the new, now eighteenth album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. But first everyone has to be patient and wait through the support act.
As I take my seat, quite far from the stage, Dry Cleaning is already playing. I’ve seen the London-based dark wave band live twice before, but it takes me two songs to realise that it’s them. The fate of the opening act: the sound isn’t mixed for them at all, the guitar is far too loud and ruins the songs. And Florence Shaw’s performance, which has a haunting effect elsewhere and always delivers her monotonous vocals with a fixed stare into space, doesn’t translate at all in this setting, nor on the big screen. Dry Cleaning will hardly have gained any new fans on this evening, I fear. What a pity.
Afterwards, the audience is set in the mood with spherical synthesizer sounds from Warren Ellis’ sound laboratory. In a continuous loop. Shortly before the waiting visitors are transported into a state of hypnotic trance, the Bad Seeds take to the stage. Last up, dressed in a suit, white shirt and dark tie, is Nick Cave, who opens the evening with “Joy”, a key track from the current album. After his recent releases—”Skeleton Tree” (2016) and “Ghosteen” (2019) as well as “Carnage” (2021), recorded with Warren Ellis—were characterised by mourning the death of his son, with introverted, dark songs that largely carried a feeling of oppressive sadness, with “Wild God” Cave now turns more towards light: “We’ve all had too much sorrow / Now is the time for joy.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that life’s darker aspects are no longer addressed. The second song of the evening, “Frogs”, continues the thread: the leap of the frog, which hops towards the sky with outstretched limbs, only to land back in the dirty gutter again, serves as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of happiness and the entanglements of earthly existence. In the 289th edition of the “Red Hand Files”, a newsletter channel through which Cave communicates with his fans and answers questions, the author comments on the lyrics line by line. “Even though acts of human brokenness”, Cave explains the meaning, “begin and end the song, the delighted dance of life is played out upon this substratum of suffering, the one eternally entangled with the other.” The opening synthesizer sequence, interspersed with sweetly chiming tones, circles throughout the song and refuses to leave one’s mind, and when the vocals settle into this sonic backdrop, the layers of sound continue to pile up and Cave’s pleading culminates in the salvation-seeking words “Lord kill me in the Sunday rain / Kill! Kill me in the Sunday rain”, it’s that moment when I am completely blown away. “Frogs” is the first highlight, followed by many more.
The current album is at the centre of the evening: nine of the ten tracks from “Wild God” are presented in the live premiere, only the opener (“Song of the Lake”) is not on the setlist today; a few days later in Berlin, the Bad Seeds play that one as well. What is remarkable is that the new songs fit seamlessly into the series of selected classics from their 40-year oeuvre without falling out of place. Visually, the songs are reinforced by the screen behind the stage, where song titles and phrases appear in the relief-like font of the album cover. In giant letters, they jump out and stick in your mind: “AMAZED BY LOVE”, “BRING – YOUR – SPIRIT – DOWN”, “KILL ME”. The words “STOP!” and “YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL” from “Conversion”, a track that ripples along quietly until halfway through before picking up speed carried by the gospel and finally ending in a euphoric frenzy of singing from Cave and the choir, are echoed even later and are shouted at the audience during the song break.
With “Jubilee Street”, tonight’s only song from the incisive album “Push the Sky Away”, an unforgettable climax is reached early on. Ellis on electric guitar and a little later Cave on piano take you by the hand and introduce you to the song with a melody for eternity, which develops an ever stronger pull until it explodes and leads to an epic finale. With the full force of the Bad Seeds and the loud support of the fans, the last lines echo through the hall for several minutes: “I am transforming, I am vibrating, I am glowing, I am flying, look at me now”. Cave runs up and down the edge of the stage, sits down briefly at the piano and bangs the keys wildly, then jumps up again until the crescendo comes to an acclaimed end in the tumult of all the instruments. How much energy can a 67-year-old possibly have?
Photo: Christian Düringer
Equally gripping are the more edgy tracks from the early years of the Seeds, where Nick Cave shows his diabolical side: The raw “From Her to Eternity” from the debut album is a wild ride into the abyss of agonising desire. Cave sings the lyrics, which he co-wrote with Anita Lane, from the depths of his soul. A similarly dark mood pervades “Red Right Hand,” which slithers along before biting nastily. In both songs, Jim Sclavunos shines on percussion. How an effectively used sound can shape an entire song becomes clear in an instant when—after “On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man / In a dusty black coat with a red right hand”—the first time you hear the piercing bell from the sound of a hammering wrought iron. That hits!
In between, the band slows down from time to time, bringing in softer, quieter songs like “Bright Horses” (Cave: “I love this song very much. It’s very beautiful.”) and the classic “Straight to You”. The much-anticipated “Into Your Arms” is part of the encore set, with the audience being asked to sing along, but not too loudly. The celebratory mood that is created is touching—even for those who, like me, are more into Cave’s unruly song beasts than his love ballads. There are four encores tonight, including “Palaces of Montezuma”, a song by Cave’s side project Grinderman. According to the setlist, there would have been even more, but Oberhausen has a strict time regime. So the concert fittingly ends with “As The Waters Cover The Sea” and a final blessing: “Peace and good tidings He will bring/ Good tidings to all things.” Almost too perfect.
Tonight’s set comprises a total of 22 songs. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds maintain the tension high with their mixture of old and new, emotional and edgy songs. Only “Wow O Wow”, which is dedicated to the late Anita Lane, is a little out of line. Cave and Lane were a couple at the end of the seventies and you can feel how close the song is to his heart. Black and white images of Lane are shown on the screen and the piece ends—as on the record—with a recording of her voice made during a phone call between the two. I feel like an uninvited guest at a funeral. Perhaps this moment is simply too intimate, the event of her death too tangible to become a communal experience.
That, I think, is the secret to the magic of a Nick Cave concert: When Cave, supported by the powerful groove of his band, connects with the audience and opens up, a palpable bond is created. Then he is surrounded by the memories of his songs that have accompanied many of those present for years, then he is carried by the emotions that his existentially charged lyrics trigger, but above all he is pushed by the interplay of energy between his vulnerability and the gratitude he receives from the audience for exposing all his feelings.
One might call this a transformation or a sacred moment in which time stands still. Or, even better, in the metaphor of the jumping frog, one could say that for over two and a half hours we float under the ceiling of the hall with a feeling of joy before—blessed and after a final “goodbye”—we slowly drift back to the ground of reality as we leave the Rudolf Weber Arena and make our way back home.
Story: Marc Wilde // Photos: Christian Düringer
