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Last night was for me a baptism of fire in the ways of Old Nick. A man who's been casting his narrow shadow across music for over twenty five years along with a band of spindly alien mad men. Old enough to have fathered most of the alternative rockers bouncing and whining their way across the airwaves, Nick Cave showed that it pays to respect your elders otherwise they might just come around with the devil and tear your face off.
There was no highlight because each song was one. The Bad Seeds attacked and tore apart every moment they were on stage with a mad-eyed bleeding intensity. This was real heavy music, the heat given off would make mullets fuse to leather jackets and spotty skins boil away in seconds. This was music fuelled by a spiritual fire, it scalds you when you get too close. A vibrant passion infused every note to the point where I was lost in a blinding fusion of blues, gospel, ballads, jazz and weeping piano laments - it was all blended so seamlessly it should be impossible that it happened.
But it did. It was more real and alive than most bands can dream of being. There were no breathers and no respite was given. Like the hardcore punk scene where the Bad Seeds were sown, this band were here to tell you something, to pass a feeling whether it be beautiful or ugly and they're not going to let you up until it's pumping through your veins. This was just a relentless outpouring of the kind of music which is born inside and has to get out of you otherwise it will kill you for trying to cage it. This was beauty, anger, sadness, love and hate all barely bound by words and sound.
There were two sets but neither trounced the other instead it was more like the overdose was followed by a full-on cardiac arrest. The raging gospel of the first set passed away leaving the mournful bitter ghosts of the second set to haunt us. In the end, the night closed with a ferocious take on The Mercy Seat as acoustic strumming erupted into a blasting militant funeral march which left me with a few tears in my eyes. When live music gets you that bad, you know it's not been a good night but one of the best. If this is what the brandy of the damned tastes like, I want more.
There was no highlight because each song was one. The Bad Seeds attacked and tore apart every moment they were on stage with a mad-eyed bleeding intensity. This was real heavy music, the heat given off would make mullets fuse to leather jackets and spotty skins boil away in seconds. This was music fuelled by a spiritual fire, it scalds you when you get too close. A vibrant passion infused every note to the point where I was lost in a blinding fusion of blues, gospel, ballads, jazz and weeping piano laments - it was all blended so seamlessly it should be impossible that it happened.
But it did. It was more real and alive than most bands can dream of being. There were no breathers and no respite was given. Like the hardcore punk scene where the Bad Seeds were sown, this band were here to tell you something, to pass a feeling whether it be beautiful or ugly and they're not going to let you up until it's pumping through your veins. This was just a relentless outpouring of the kind of music which is born inside and has to get out of you otherwise it will kill you for trying to cage it. This was beauty, anger, sadness, love and hate all barely bound by words and sound.
There were two sets but neither trounced the other instead it was more like the overdose was followed by a full-on cardiac arrest. The raging gospel of the first set passed away leaving the mournful bitter ghosts of the second set to haunt us. In the end, the night closed with a ferocious take on The Mercy Seat as acoustic strumming erupted into a blasting militant funeral march which left me with a few tears in my eyes. When live music gets you that bad, you know it's not been a good night but one of the best. If this is what the brandy of the damned tastes like, I want more.
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