Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

with Black Country, New Road

The latest gig on our A to Z Musical Tour was ……

There are some gigs that you want to review almost immediately while memories, both visual and aural, are fresh in the memory.

For others, like Sunday night’s Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Hydro gig, time is needed to absorb and reflect on everything that we witnessed.

Across a two and a half hour set there was an outpouring of emotional intensity by Nick Cave, matched only by the incredible musicians of The Bad Seeds that form his group, Gospel singers included.

The tour is a showcase for the latest album Wild God and, while its songs permeate the set list, there are fans favourites scattered throughout the night that highlight the journey Nick Cave and his sidekick Warren Ellis have travelled over the years.

Books, poetry, songs and other artistic endeavours are often the result of some form of inspiration.

How Nick Cave has been able to write such sensitive music during a period of personal tragedy is beyond reasonable analysis.

At times he seemed to be almost at the point of tears as he sang about love and loss a subject that he knows much about and which many of the audience empathised with. When the music reflected the tenderness of the lyrics, a blanket of hush enveloped the Hydro. At such times he seemed as one with those in front of him.

Was it a musical gig?, a spiritual experience?, or an evening for us all to reflect on the presence of a man and his band at the peak of their powers?

Nick Cave has always been a storyteller and, with Jubilee Street, Red Right Hand, The Mercy Seat and Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry he held the audience in the palm of his own right hand, bouncing around the stage and platform like the young punk he once was. He’s well into his mid sixties now but age has not held back his wildest tendencies.

It is maybe telling though that he ended the night alone, at the piano, with Into My Arms.

A fitting end to one of the musical highlights of 2024.

Support Act Black Country, New Road

Attempting to pigeon hole the band into an available genre might be difficult. Is it jazz? Is it rock? Is it experimental?

Mandolin, accordion, flutes, saxophone and violins intermingle with drums, guitar and keyboards throughout a set that formed a pleasurable listen. With lead vocals shared between Tyler Hyde, Georgia Ellery and May Kershaw, the songs themselves did not appear to form the usual structure of intro, verse, chorus, verse, outro they were all the better for it. You didn’t know what was coming next.

However described, the band did what was required of them. They entertained.