DRESS STANDARDS APPLY AS NICK CAVE ENTERS WIND BACK WEDNESDAY
- Bernard Zuel
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
This Friday (and Saturday for others) some of us in Sydney will be skirting the Art Gallery, arriving early for Aldous Harding, and then finding everyone arming themselves for a night under the stars with Nicholas Cave and friends.
Which version of the Bad Seeds will we get? Will it be something like the one seen in this Wind Back Wednesday return to the halls of 2014? When Cave and a mini-Seeds played indoors, in reasonable size rooms and no one – come on, don’t pretend you did – thought one day not too far into the future he’d be not only a national treasure but a national treasure who pulls many thousands to a city park.
To keep you company while you wait for the 2026 shows, do your buttons up, sit up straight, and enjoy another look at the compressed Bad Seeds and the well-pressed Nick Cave.
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NICK CAVE
State Theatre, December 11, 2014
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SUCH GOOD SHOES. Not just Nick Cave’s non-more-glossy patents (regular black, not the "favourite yellow patent leather shoes" he sang about later in the picaresque tale of Higgs Boson Blues) but Warren Ellis’ even more elongated, possibly faux-reptile ones. Both pairs said we’re here for business but business is fun.
And fun they were often enough, Cave toying with the devotees at the front who wanted to hold his hands or touch his, well, hem, arching his eyebrows to those of us further back, teasing Ellis.
Such good suits. We know they like to dress well the Bad Seeds, here represented in chamber formation with Ellis (on various stringed instruments, flute, vocals and resonant chime/bell for Red Right Hand), Thomas Wydler (on drums and one loud count-in), Barry Adamson (on keys, vocals, marimba and high class muscle cool) and Martyn P. Casey (on bass, hair and effortless cool).
But here again they just looked a cut above the pack and what’s not to love about a well dressed band?
Such good playing. The aforementioned Seeds can rumble and roil, and during the long stretch of From Her To Eternity they powered on like a b-double on an uninterrupted drive down a Northern Territory highway. But they can drop back to next to nothing, maybe just Casey’s bass to accompany Cave on piano, or find the balance of subtle force through The Weeping Song on minimal sounds, without feeling like they’ve left a hole but rather left charged space.
Such good presentation. A very well designed lighting set up created mood without contrivance and shadings without obscuring. And allowed for accidental projections of Cave’s form on the deco walls beside the stage, which went from benign shadow puppets to some devilment from the imagination of F. W. Murnau (we all know Cave’s long, lean form is about the right dimension to be a Nosferatu).
Such good songs. Well, yes, obviously. The menace of We Real Cool – and the intimations of prog rock in the flute - tempered by its sly humour; the vivid portraiture of Jubilee Street holding us still; the intimacy of Love Letter and the grandness of Let Love In (here like a waltz co-written by crime writer Joseph Wambaugh) both offered without hyperbole.
Such good times. It wasn’t the full force of a Bad Seeds in rock mode or the hushed atmospheres of the Bad Seeds in bedroom mode - and definitely not the lascivious lurch of Grinderman. But there’s more suits in this wardrobe than those and this one was perfectly tailored.
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Nick Cave plays:
The Domain, Sydney, January 23-24
Brisbane Showgrounds, January 27
Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne, January 30-31, February 1
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