nick cave tour review

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• September 20, 2023

Nick Cave Launches 2023 Solo Tour at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville (RECAP)

• By Ryan Dillon
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After extensive tours with his band the Bad Seeds and a collaborative tour with film composer and Bad Seeds member Warren Ellis, Nick Cav e is embarking on a solo effort. On a rare excursion to North America, Cave will be playing a string of shows across the States and parts of Canada on his Live In North America 2023 tour. This journey marks Cave’s first official solo tour since 2020’s Conversations With Nick Cave tour which had the artist performing classic tracks while also mixing in Q-&-A portions to his show. After his summer tour with The Bad Seeds bleeds into his fall tour with Ellis, the mysterious crooner shows no signs of slowing down. 

Along with Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood accompanying him on bass duties, Cave took over Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina last night (September 19) for the first stop on his tour with an extensive setlist filled with firsts and classics. Cave kicked off with classics like “The Sorrowful Wife”, “Girl In Amber” and “O Children”. Cave also pulled out some deep cuts like “Euthanasia” from B-Sides & Rarities (Part II) , and that was just the beginning of what fans were treated to. Cave reached into his collaborative album with Warren Ellis, 2021’s CARNAGE , for first-ever solo performances of the title track and “Balcony Man”. Some other firsts include Cave performing the Bad Seeds’ track “Push The Sky Away” for the first time without his band since 2015 and debuting the solo performance of “Give Us A Kiss”. 

After a career-spanning setlist at Harrah’s Cherokee Center last night, Cave is just getting started. His rare jaunt across North America will have him hitting cities like Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, and many more. Along with solo shows, Cave is also on a book tour to promote the paperback release of “Fait, Hope and Carnage”. He will be stopping in select cities like Boston, Nashville, and Los Angeles. You can check out the full setlist, tour dates, and footage from last night’s show below: 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sharon Burdick (@burdiction)

09/19 — Asheville, NC – Thomas Wolfe Auditorium

09/21 — Durham, NC – DPAC

09/23 — Washington, D.C. – Lincoln Theatre

09/25 — Cleveland, OH – Playhouse Square

09/27 — Milwaukee, WE – Riverside Theater

09/29 — Chicago, IL – Auditorium Theatre

10/02 — Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre

10/06 — Brooklyn, NY – Kings Theatre

10/07 – New York, NY – Beacon Theatre

10/10 — Boston, MA – Wang Theatre

10/12 — Montreal, QC – Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier

10/14 — Toronto, ON – Massey Hall

10/15 — Detroit, MI – Masonic Cathedral Theatre

10/17 — Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium

10/20 — Atlanta, GA – Atlanta Symphony Hall

10/22 — Dallas, TX – Majestic Theatre

10/23 — Austin, TX – ACL at The Moody

10/27 — Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre

10/28 — Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre

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Concert review: nick cave & warren ellis.

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Though Ghosteen (2019) is credited to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the photo inside the album’s gatefold reveals a lot about the future direction of its creator. Featuring Cave and longtime collaborator Warren Ellis, Bad Seed and frontman of Dirty Three, walking alone along a foggy beach, the picture presages where the Australian musician will have landed circa 2022. Though the Covid-19 pandemic has limited person-to-person exposure for most of us, things have clearly shifted towards a Nick Cave and the Bad Seed situation as Cave and Ellis have not only continued to write film scores together but even put out a rock album, Carnage (2021), credited to them both and without the help of their other bandmates.

Cave has done solo tours before, but this is the first time where a collaborator has received equal billing at one of his concerts. After a UK and European tour last fall, Cave and Ellis are now traversing North America, bringing with them three backup singers, one multi-instrumentalist and a stripped-down evening of recent songs. If the pandemic did spare us from seeing Cave play in a basketball arena, it also deprived an artist and his crowd the energy from which they both feed for much too long. Over the course of 135 minutes and 21 songs, Cave and Ellis proved why this concert was long overdue and that they are among the best songwriters and performers working today.

For longtime fans of Nick Cave, his concert setlists can be frustrating at a Bad Seeds show. Cave typically plays recent material, bolstered by the same “hits” year in and year out. His solo 2019 Conversations tour allowed Cave to air out some gems, such as “Shivers” and his take on Leonard Cohen’s “Avalanche.” By performing nothing older than Murder Ballads -era gem “Henry Lee,” on the Seattle date of the Carnage tour, Cave gave songs like “The Mercy Seat” and “Red Right Hand” a welcome break while focusing mainly on his work from 2016 and on, the period where Ellis moved from backing violin player to chief collaborator, shifting to creating loops and soundscapes over which Cave explored themes of loss and redemption.

Compared to recent Bad Seeds shows which often culminated with Cave skating through the audience, grabbing hands and embracing people while other fans crashed the stage and danced, this tour felt like a subdued affair. Cave, dressed in a tailored, blue suit, alternated between playing the piano and stalking the lip of the stage while he sang to the folks up front, but many of the stately songs called more for rapt silence than raucous adoration. Cave and Ellis set the tone early by beginning with a trio of somber Ghosteen songs: “Spinning Song,” “Bright Horses” and “Night Raid” before shifting to the gorgeous title track from Carnage .

Though time has taken away some of Cave’s rougher edges, he can still attack a song harder than someone half his age. “White Elephant” allowed him to stretch out into full rock mode as he shrieked and flapped, warning that he will “ shoot you in the fucking face if you think of coming around here .” The song also perfectly showcases Cave’s perverse sense of humor, featuring lyrics such as, “ I am a Botticelli Venus with a penis/ Riding an enormous scalloped fan .” A few fans tried to rush the stage during the song, but most people stayed at their seats for the majority of the show. He would only stretch out with so much energy once more that evening with “Hand of God.”

Ellis, for his part, remained seated for the entire show, hunched over a small synthesizer. After a fan threw a pair of green glasses and a beaded necklace up on the stage in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, Cave – who seemed unaware of the holiday- tried to get Ellis to put on the glasses. When he demurred, Cave said, “You’re the only one here who could fucking pull these off.” Instead, Cave sat at his piano and put the glass on momentarily, whipping them off and admonishing someone up front of being too slow with their phone to snap a photo.

For an American audience who hasn’t seen Cave in a few years, many of the songs that evening made their live debut, especially the Ghosteen and Carnage material. Cave did recast some of the older songs, changing “Waiting for You” into a solo ballad on the piano and morphing his cover of T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer” into a full band workout, featuring an inspired solo by Ellis on violin.

After reaching back to No More Shall We Part (2001) with “God is in the House,” Cave closed out the first set with gentle versions of “Shattered Ground,” “Galleon Ship” and “Leviathan.” Before leaving the stage, he feted the folks in the Paramount’s upper level with “Balcony Man,” asking them to shout and scream whenever he sang the word, “balcony.” Easily one of Cave’s most gentle creations, the beauty of the song lingered as the musicians walked off the stage.

Sixteen songs would be a generous setlist, but Cave and Ellis returned for two encores, kicking off the first with a nearly 15-minute version of “Hollywood,” a late career highlight. Cave began the song on the piano and finished on his feet, singing the extended fable that ends the song in falsetto. He then played “Henry Lee” featuring backup vocalist Janet Ramus in the part PJ Harvey sang on the album version. Finally, Cave dedicated “Girl in Amber” to his recently departed friend, Anita Lane, in what would be yet another emotional highlight of the evening.

Cave returned for a second encore, singing a solo version of “Into My Arms,” a longtime fan favorite from The Boatman’s Call , before ending the night with “Ghosteen Speaks.” Once again, Cave stood at the edge of the stage, reaching out to the audience that the pandemic had deprived him of. “ I am beside you/ Look for me ,” he comforted us, hand stretched out, fingers flayed. The people gathered at his feet reached back. Who knows how long it will take us to heal from the pandemic? Probably never. Cave is beside us. If he and Ellis are playing in your city, look for them.

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Things to do | review: nick cave dares to be just himself in a striking, stripped-down concert at the auditorium theatre.

A fiery and physical performer, Nick Cave is renowned for flailing about the stage and inhabiting the personas of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, shadowy outlaw, lecherous scoundrel and unhinged conductor. Friday at a packed Auditorium Theatre, the singer-songwriter relinquished those roles and stepped into a guise just as daring: That of a tormented composer seated at a piano, unafraid to strip down and probe the limitations of vulnerability, devotion and mourning.

Accompanied on most tunes by Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood, Cave played as if adhering to the lyrics for one of his older compositions, “Brompton Oratory.” Aurally and emotionally, the striking 130-minute set represented beauty hard to define and endure. Cave combed through the detritus of relationships once they splinter, suffer neglect or endure a worse fate. Save for a handful of instances when he stood to show appreciation, he stayed seated, transferring the intimacy he often shares by wading into the crowd to the music itself.

With his dapper appearance — black suit, white shirt, black tie, jet-black hair slicked back on his head and covering his neck — cutting a familiar figure, Cave gave the impression he was allowing the audience in on a private creative process. He spoke of a desire to “get to the soul” of the songs and said the unadorned versions mirrored how they’d originally been presented to his band, the Bad Seeds.

Cave has evolved from an underground post-punk raconteur with a thirst for manic adventure and noisy chaos in the early ’80s into a prolific songwriter who claims one of the most vital catalogs of the past four decades. Though many artists slow their output as they age, the 66-year-old Australian native seems immune to stasis and driven by an urge to express himself more frequently — and through multiple mediums.

His early career and first band is the subject of a new documentary (“Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party”) currently screening around the country. Last year, the film “This Much I Know to Be True” profiled Cave’s relationship with longtime collaborator Warren Ellis, who joined the singer at the Auditorium Theatre in March 2022. In tandem with Ellis, Cave has released eight soundtrack scores since the start of 2016, most recently for the Netflix features “Blonde” and “Dahmer.”

Celebrated by critics and peers, Cave’s ink-stained output transcends the musical realm. He’s penned multiple books, including a children’s book he also illustrated. He’s published photo collections, prints of drawings and reproductions of notebook pages. His sketches and art grace jewelry charms, glazed tiles, prayer cards, wallpaper and tableware. Lest he come across as self-obsessed, Cave maintains an online question-and-answer exchange ( www.theredhandfiles.com ) with fans and replies to all manner of topics.

The singer embraced that communal ethos to a liberal degree Friday, dedicating a pair of songs to attendees in response to their letters requesting them. Throughout the encore, Cave welcomed suggestions, going as far as remembering the chords to the forlorn “People Ain’t No Good” and playing it for the first time in years. He conversed with the crowd, tolerated inane shout-outs that occasionally intruded on softer moments and shook hands with fans in the front row after the conclusion of the cynical finale, “God Is in the House.”

For all the pleasantries, the focus remained on the songs, nearly all of which conveyed serious overtones and carried considerable weight. Cave’s approach to the piano — largely free of decorative fills, fixated on simple albeit quietly intense melodies — and Greenwood’s spare low-end notes reinforced the severity. To further draw out dramatic action and build tension, Cave manipulated pace, rhythm and the force with which he struck the keys, and used pregnant pauses to brilliant effect.

He also leveraged the broad dynamics of his husky baritone to frighten, comfort, grieve, reflect and plead. Cave stretched syllables, hissed observations, whispered suspicions, moaned refrains, crooned lullabies. He turned the gospel-inspired “O Children” into a high-wire act, pitting hope against reality while implying the commands to rejoice arrived too late. On the nightmarish “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry” and unrepentant “The Mercy Seat,” he spat lyrics with a menacing violence that matched the narratives.

Misdeeds involving bloodshed and betrayal never seemed distant — this was a Cave concert, after all — yet the singer sounded less concerned with murder and tempest than the kind of deep-seated passion tied to romance, love and longing. The gorgeous “Galleon Ship” and “Into My Arms,” a subdued ode to an attraction so powerful the protagonist begins to doubt his atheism and finds salvation and peace. Those sought-after characteristics otherwise proved elusive. As did clear-eyed redemption.

The majority of ballads — and a lone self-described “bizarre wedding song” (“And No More Shall We Part”) — confronted uncertainty, loneliness or loss. Cave reveled in their mysteries, laid bare the carnage, telescoped the traumatic waves of desperation inflicting the abandoned.

The sorrowful “I Need You” challenged whether anything mattered and closed with the singer repeating “just breathe” over and over, as if administering CPR. “Black Hair” unfolded as a somber mantra, its cherished sensations ultimately engulfed by a painful departure. Even the inviting warmth of “The Ship Song,” a graceful call to let go of inhibitions and take risks, became pierced by an inevitable exodus.

Short of making the sort of comically exaggerated promises detailed on a groove-savvy revision of the Grinderman track “Palaces of Montezuma,” what other advice could Cave offer the despondent and distressed?

“Keep on pushing,” Cave sang, his tone ringed with resigned determination rather than relieved triumph. “Push the sky away.”

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist from the Auditorium Theatre Sept. 29:

“Girl in Amber”

“Higgs Boson Blues”

“Jesus of the Moon”

“Galleon Ship”

“Untitled “

“O Children”

“I Need You”

“Waiting for You”

“Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry”

“Balcony Man”

“Carnage”

“The Mercy Seat”

“Black Hair”

“(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For? “

“The Weeping Song”

“Into My Arms”

“Jubilee Street”

“Push the Sky Away”

“The Ship Song”

“And No More Shall We Part”

“Cosmic Dancer” (T. Rex cover)

“Palaces of Montezuma”

“People Ain’t No Good”

“Love Letter”

“Stranger Than Kindness”

“God Is in the House”

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Music | Here’s why the Nick Cave concert in Oakland…

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Music | sunpower details bay area job cuts, will slash more than 100 jobs in region, music | here’s why the nick cave concert in oakland mattered so much, nick cave was joined by longtime collaborator warren ellis.

The healing power of music was on full display as Nick Cave and Warren Ellis took the stage on Sunday night at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland.

It wasn’t so much about joy — although, of course, there was plenty of that to be found in the capacity crowd — but more so about cleansing. Some 3,000 fans walked into the 1930s Art Deco movie palace carrying various individual (and collective) weights on their shoulders, from dealing with the last two years of the pandemic to fears over the war in Ukraine, and yet, somehow, the loads seemed to lighten as the night progressed.

That’s not because anything was solved, fixed or figured out during the evening. It’s just that the concert reminded us that we’re not alone in all of this.

And how important is that in 2022?

It was not, however, an easy night of music. It never is when Cave comes to town.

Instead, it was as richly cathartic a night of music as I can remember, as Cave brought the crowd to life through the tear-stained songs from his last two albums.

The vocalist performed nearly all of “Ghosteen,” the heart-wrenching 2019 double album that was written in the aftermath of death of his 15-year-old son Arthur. The set list also included six of the eight songs featured on last year’s grief-filled “Carnage,” which was the first duo outing by Cave and Warren — a longtime member of Cave’s Bad Seeds band.

Cave and Ellis, who perform a second show at the Paramount on Monday, opened the concert in brilliant fashion with the “Spinning Song,” Cave’s latest ode to the “king of rock ‘n’ roll” who had “black jelly hair” and “crashed onto a stage in Vegas.” The Elvis-inspired number also happens to be the opener for “Ghosteen” and the pair would stick to that album for the next two offerings as well — the equally mesmerizing “Bright Horses” and “Night Raid.”

Cave moved more like a Shakespearean actor than a rock star onstage, powering every move with added drama and favoring exaggerated motions, so that even those in sitting in the balcony could see the action, but he also spent much time at the long black piano situated stage right.

Ellis, a multi-instrumentalist who performs on electronics, violin and more, was seated for most of the show, rocking back and forth as he propelled the music and counting in the songs (“2-3-4”) with much gusto.

“I just like to watch him count things in,” Cave said of Ellis. “He has like the sexiest counting in rock ‘n’ roll history.”

He’d then somewhat revise that assessment, commenting about how great singer-songwriter-guitarist Jonathan Richman is at counting in songs.

“This is for Jonathan Richman,” said Cave, dedicating the next song of the evening — which, unfortunately, did not turn out to be a cover of Richman’s “I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar.”

(The dedicated song turned out to be “Waiting for You,” which is actually another stunning offering from “Ghosteen.”)

Cave and Ellis — who were backed by three excellent vocalists as well as another multi-instrumentalist — did perform one cover on the night, delivering a splendid rendition of T-Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer.”

Cave balanced out the intensely harrowing music with bits of humor and levity throughout the night, most of which came in the form of between-song banter. There was even a moment when he reached out for a bit of crowd participation late in the 16-song main set, asking for people in the balcony to go “ape (expletive)” when he said the word “balcony” in the song “Balcony Man.”

“OK, this sounds like a dumb idea,” Cave said. “But it kind of works if you put your heart into it — like most things.”

Cave certainly put his heart into this show. And the result definitely lifted ours.

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Nick Cave announces 2023 solo US tour

The Bad Seeds frontman will be back in North America this autumn

Nick Cave will be embarking on a run of North American tour dates later this year.

• READ MORE: ‘This Much I Know To Be True’ review: an engrossing portrait of Nick Cave

The tour will kick off on September 19 in Asheville, North Carolina before making stops in another 18 cities throughout the US. Cave will then sign off at the end of October with a pair of shows at LA’s Orpheum Theatre.

The pre-sale for tickets will go live on Monday (March 27) at 10am local time, before the general sale commences on Friday (March 31), also at 10am local time.

You can see the full list of dates below and buy your tickets here .

SEPTEMBER 19 – Asheville, NC – Thomas Wolfe Auditorium 21, – Durham, NC – DPAC 23 – Washington, D.C. – Lincoln Theatre 25 – Cleveland, OH – Playhouse Square 27 – Milwaukee, WE – Riverside Theater 29 – Chicago, IL – Auditorium Theatre

OCTOBER 2 – Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre 6 – Brooklyn, NY – Kings Theatre 7 – New York, NY – Beacon Theatre 10 – Boston, MA – Wang Theatre 12 – Montreal, QC – Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier 14 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall 15 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Cathedral Theatre 17 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium 20 – Atlanta, GA – Atlanta Symphony Hall 22 – Dallas, TX – Majestic Theatre 23 – Austin, TX – ACL at The Moody 27 – Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre 28 – Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre

Recommended

Cave recently made headlines when he described the late poet and novelist Charles Bukowski as “the bukkake of bad poetry.”

“I just don’t like Charles Bukowski. In my opinion, Charles Bukowski is the ‘Bukkake of Bad Poetry’, just blowing his junk around,” he wrote on his Red Hand Files blog in comparison to a fan named Simon who drew similarities between the two. “I don’t like him. I just don’t. Not even a bit. No, not at all.”

Earlier this month, Cave launched a new installation and shop at London’s Dover Street market . It features a whole new range of products from his online store ‘Cave Things’, which includes apparel, books, homeware, prints and limited edition recordings, as well as new ‘Cave Things’ products exclusive to Dover Street Market.

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The Abbatoir Blues Tour

By Stephen M. Deusner

April 3, 2007

Nick Cave turns 50 this year, and with his receding hairline and even gaunter appearance of late, he could easily settle into his rock twilight years, wherein the edginess of his career-making early work is smoothed over for a mature AOR radio-friendly sound. In fact, his decision to employ a gospel choir on his 2004 double album, Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus , might have been a step toward adult contemporary schmaltz, were it not for the album's psychotic meditations on artistic inspiration and good-versus-evil. The one-time shitkicking Birthday Party singer and rabble-rousing Bad Seeds frontman may have refined his attack, but even as his musical range has expanded, his subject matter remains visceral without being gratuitous and intelligent without being academic. Balancing vulgarity with suavity (the man looks good in a suit), he's turning expectations of middle age inside out, making a mockery of all the gone-soft musicians who have fortressed themselves against obsolescence with standards albums and reunion tours.

So, every time you play Cave's new double-live 2xCD/2xDVD set, a little part of Sting dies. That alone should be enough to keep it in constant rotation, but The Abbatoir Blues Tour is actually a solid entry in Cave's canon, one of too few live releases from the brooding bard, perhaps even besting the so-so Live Seeds from 1993, which has several tracks in common. Abbatoir/Orpheus was a particularly strong album, one that made good use of its double-disc sprawl and filled every song with intriguing musical and thematic ideas. If at times this even bigger set seems a little redundant of its studio predecessor, it's fascinating to see how Cave and his coterie have adapted these ideas to the stage and how new songs sit alongside earlier material like "The Weeping Song", "Deanna", and "Stagger Lee", which noisily disembowels the American blues legend. Between this set, the upcoming badassathon of his side project Grinderman, and his screenplay for last year's Aussie epic The Proposition , Cave still has fire in his belly.

Shot to suggest the dynamic of a barfight, the two DVDs-- recorded at London's Brixton Academy and Hammersmith Apollo-- emphasize the physicality of the Bad Seeds' performance, specifically the concentration with which each member contributes to the larger sound. Halfway through each lead track, they're already soaked in sweat-- all except Cave, despite his jet-black suit and manic Elvis swagger. I suppose the lights of a London stage can't compare with the intensity of the fires of hell. As on the studio albums, the backing singers mock, taunt, curse, and defy Cave, his characters, and even the audience, adding slick retorts to "Stagger Lee" and genuinely gorgeous uplift to "O Children". On the other hand, the music seems all the more potent for having a live audience present during its creation. That shouldn't be surprising, considering that Cave has always played the part of a preacher and invested his songs with a sort of rapturous conviction. In this case, singing along to "Red Right Hand", apparently a crowd favorite, would seem to be the equivalent of speaking in tongues.

Like Abbatoir/Orpheus, these two DVDs showcase two sides of the band: the Brixton disc features harder, harsher Abbatoir songs like "Get Ready for Love" and "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", while the much shorter, somewhat anticlimactic Hammersmith set echoes the softer, more balladlike Orpheus , with songs like "Nobody's Baby Now" and "Wonderful Life" (albeit not a single song from either Abbatoir or Orpheus ).

Of course, there are no tidy categorizations: the Birthday Party-era "Wild World" begins quietly, with Cave at his piano, but erupts into a show-closing din. Warren Ellis' flute set begins "Nature Boy" softly, even sweetly, but quickly becomes dissonant racket, and "Red Right Hand" veers wildly between a lovely guitar/piano duet and abrupt bursts of abrasive noise. The backing singers goad the skronk of "Stagger Lee", lending it the staginess of a showtune, which makes the imagery all the more visceral. The infernal dread of "Red Right Hand", the vulgar theatrics of "Stagger Lee", and the hoary pastoral of "Breathless" don't merely cohabitate here, but feed off one another to create a beautiful grotesquerie and reveal the breadth of the band's endeavors.

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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - THE WILD GOD TOUR - UK & Europe 2024

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Nick Cave Solo 2024

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• April 25, 2024 Setlist

Nick Cave Setlist at Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne, Australia

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Tour: Solo Australia 2024 Tour statistics Add setlist

• Girl in Amber ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Higgs Boson Blues ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Galleon Ship ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Euthanasia Play Video
• O Children ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• I Need You ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Waiting for You ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Papa Won't Leave You, Henry ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Balcony Man ( Nick Cave & Warren Ellis  cover) Play Video
• Carnage ( Nick Cave & Warren Ellis  cover) Play Video
• The Mercy Seat ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Black Hair ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• There Is a Kingdom ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For? ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Love Letter ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• The Weeping Song ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Into My Arms ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Jubilee Street ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Push the Sky Away ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• The Ship Song ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• Shivers ( The Boys Next Door  song) ( Dedicated on the night to Roland S. Howard ) Play Video
• Palaces of Montezuma ( Grinderman  song) Play Video
• Give Us a Kiss ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) Play Video
• God Is in the House ( Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds  song) ( Restarted the song after missing a beat in the first verse ) Play Video
• The Carnival Is Over ( The Seekers  cover) Play Video

Note: Setlist incomplete and out of order

Edits and Comments

17 activities (last edit by yaudog , 26 Apr 2024, 01:33 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For? by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Balcony Man by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
• Black Hair by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Carnage by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
• Galleon Ship by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Girl in Amber by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Give Us a Kiss by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• God Is in the House by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Higgs Boson Blues by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• I Need You by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Into My Arms by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Jubilee Street by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Love Letter by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• O Children by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Palaces of Montezuma by Grinderman
• Papa Won't Leave You, Henry by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Push the Sky Away by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Shivers by The Boys Next Door
• The Carnival Is Over by The Seekers
• The Mercy Seat by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• The Ship Song by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• The Weeping Song by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• There Is a Kingdom by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
• Waiting for You by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

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Nick Cave Gig Timeline

• Oct 29 2023 Orpheum Theatre Los Angeles, CA, USA Start time: 9:00 PM 9:00 PM
• Dec 08 2023 Shane MacGowan's Funeral Nenagh, Ireland Start time: 4:05 PM 4:05 PM
• Apr 25 2024 Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre This Setlist Melbourne, Australia Start time: 8:30 PM 8:30 PM
• Apr 26 2024 Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Melbourne, Australia Add time Add time
• Apr 27 2024 Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Melbourne, Australia Add time Add time

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Nick Cave Looks for Peace and Finds Hope on ‘Ghosteen’

By Kory Grow

It’s a rare thing to see an artist’s worldview change overnight. For decades, Nick Cave has been goth rock’s hyperliterate poet laureate, famous for his intricately molded stories about rogues and “badlanders” all in the throes of anguish. (He has also always written beautiful love songs.) But where writing about doom and despair once seemed like a lark — see “Stagger Lee,” John Finn’s Wife,” Murder Ballads , etc. — the freak death of his 15-year-old son Arthur four years ago rightfully shook him to his core. His last album, 2016’s Skeleton Tree , was recorded after Arthur’s death but mostly written before it. His latest, however, seems like a broader, and altogether more stunning reaction to losing his son.

He split the album, which bears the self-explanatory title Ghosteen , into two acts. He is avoiding the standard press cycle, opting for audience Q&As lately, so here is all he has said about the record so far: “The songs on the first album are the children. The songs on the second album are their parents. Ghosteen is a migrating spirit.” It’s a holistic portrait of a father grieving, and while the songs are often heartbreaking — he dwells on and repeats phrases like “It’s a long way to find peace of mind” on the closing track “Hollywood,” on the parents’ half — there is also a strange hope within the songs.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Ghosteen is the frankness of the lyrics. Although Cave still couches many of the songs in his own parables, it’s easy to see the artist through his work. The opening track, “Spinning Song,” is ostensibly about “the King of Rock & Roll,” but it’s more likely that the repeated lyrics “And I love you” and “Peace will come in time” are more important than his umpteenth retelling of Elvis Presley’s nativity. “Ghosteen Speaks,” a track on the children’s half of the record and ostensibly the concept album’s cornerstone, isn’t so much a monologue by the titular character so much as the character (some kind of superhero?) “Ghosteen” saying, “I am beside you/Look for me.” There are several songs about being “by your side” and many more about horses running free (freedom, and trying to attach oneself to it, is always present). On “Fireflies,” from the parents’ half of the record, he sings, “I am here and you are where you are.”

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“Sun Forest,” in the first half, is Cave’s vision of “a spiral of children [that] climb up to the sun, waving goodbye to you.” The 14-minute “Hollywood” contains the Buddhist story Kisa Gotami, whose baby died, and she brings it from house to house in her village asking what to do; his falsetto voice breaks up with sorrow as he sings it. The album cover looks like Heaven or the Garden of Eden. It’s all still as dark and morose as his past works, but there’s an undeniable reality to it all that makes it gut-wrenching.

What makes it all the heavier is the work of his backing group, the Bad Seeds. Most of the songs are draped in thick, New Age-y synthesizer; it’s ether in action, ether in practice. Thomas Wydler is credited as the drummer, but damned if you’ll hear him much in the mix. It’s more likely you’ll hear Jim Sclavunos’ percussion or Martyn Casey’s throbbing bass keeping the rhythm going. Cave’s main collaborator of recent years, Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis, occasionally takes the music and creates looped samples out of it, adding further to Cave’s imagery of being caught in limbo.

But while hope was in short supply on Skeleton Tree , where the songs were so sad it was almost like a dare to listen to it, a unique sort of optimism pierces through the grief from time to time on Ghosteen . It’s in the chords that Cave and the Bad Seeds play (especially the chorus of “Waiting for You”) and it’s in the words of songs like “Galleon Ship” in which sings, “For we are not alone it seems/[there are] so many riders in the sky” over glistening synths. “Ghosteen,” which opens the parents’ part of the record, begins with the words, “The world is beautiful.” And there’s also a certain peace in hearing Cave sing “Everybody’s losing someone,” in “Hollywood,” even if it just means he’s coming to terms with his own grief. If anything, the real concept behind Ghosteen is that Nick Cave is not broken. He has merely changed. He may feel shattered, but he is still writing and finding meaning in his music.

Ghosteen is a masterpiece of melancholy. You mourn right along with him and hope he finds solace.

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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Ghosteen review – a heavenly haunting

(Ghosteen Ltd) In the first album wholly written since the death of his son, Cave reaches an extraordinary, sad and beautiful artistic evolution

W hat is the worst that can happen? And what happens after the worst does? Nick Cave, leader of the Bad Seeds, his band of over 30 years, has had to endure the triple bind of unimaginable tragedy, processing grief as a public figure and – more recently – the task of metabolising that suffering into some kind of continued artistic existence. Had Cave gone to ground indefinitely after the death of his teenage son Arthur in 2015 , everyone would have understood.

Instead, he released an album in 2016, Skeleton Tree – a work digested by fans in the shadow of the event, but largely written before it – and an accompanying documentary, the visually lyrical One More Time With Feeling , which dealt with the aftermath of Arthur’s passing.

Last year, Cave did two more barely imaginable things: he started an ask-me-anything online forum called the Red Hand Files where he candidly discussed his own state of mind and handed out sage advice like the most sublime of agony uncles. Then Cave took the whole process on tour, embarking on an extraordinary series of solo dates in which he mixed song with questions from the audience. That this formerly forbidding bard of lust and brimstone, violence and tenderness, was trading in his artistic aloofness for a purgative communion marked one of the most remarkable evolutions in rock. “Nothing can go wrong, because everything has gone wrong,” he noted in Cardiff .

Now there is Ghosteen , a double album about a wandering spirit in which Cave invokes the gravitas of the late Leonard Cohen and the hoarse, harsh beauty of latterday Scott Walker. You might have thought bereavement might have unleashed a raging, vengeful beast within Cave – there is a cougar on this album, prowling the perimeter of a California compound, “with a terrible engine of wrath for a heart”, but it is the sole irruption here of the old, Old Testament Cave.

Listening to these 11 songs requires a ready supply of absorbent materials, some rehydration salts – it is so very sad – and perhaps a metaphysician on call. Quite apart from the devastation in its recurrent themes – Jesus in his mother’s arms, blackened butterflies, stairways to heaven, a malevolent, Pied Piper-like sun that steals children away – Ghosteen is an album about the very nature of what is real and what is not, and who is to judge.

Bright Horses, one of the most beautiful songs here, sets loose metaphorical horses of love with “manes full of fire” into an apocalyptic landscape. But then Cave reins them back in.

“And we’re all so sick and tired of seeing things as they are,” he aches, “The horses are just horses and their manes aren’t full of fire, and the fields are just fields and there ain’t no Lord.”

Cave, though, feels the continued presence of his son, “a little white shape dancing at the end of the world”. Cave assures us he’s coming home “on the 5.30 train”. Why not believe in ghosts? “There’s nothing wrong with loving something you can’t hold in your hand,” Cave muses, on the title track. And Arthur’s analogue, the Ghosteen, appears from time to time, to say: “I am beside you.”

As to where we go when we die, this career-long purveyor of religious imagery doesn’t tackle that directly. “We are here, and you are where you are,” he puts it movingly, on a song called Fireflies, the first sign of this new album, its lyrics released via the Red Hand Files a year ago.

The album’s vivid cover art, meanwhile, is a kitsch paradise by the artist Tom du Bois in which flamingos frolic and lions lie down with lambs, signalling a radical change of emotional landscape for the Bad Seeds. And yet Ghosteen completes a trilogy of records connected by their sound: Push the Sky Away (2013), Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen are all keening, subliminally orchestral works, swirling with electronic mood music; they supersede the rock format and solo piano of previous Bad Seeds or Cave solo works, underscoring the cornerstone presence of violinist Warren Ellis, who also provides revelatory backing vocals.

It takes a moment to decipher Cave’s explanation that the songs on Part One are the children, and the songs on Part Two are their parents. These are not two sets of songs sung from generational points of view, but rather, Ghosteen ’s second half contains the seeds of its first: the songs of Part One may have been spun off from Part Two.

Ultimately, all are visions, alternately haunted and comforting. Subtle evolutions in mood and instrumentation come to peaks that are made all the more stunning by their scarcity. There are pianos, but the exhausted trope of the sad piano ballad is nowhere to be found. A luminous, Kraftwerk-like sheen distinguishes the title track itself; on Night Raid, a bell of sorts tolls. At its very climax, the catastrophic moment where a small child abandons his bucket and spade and “climbs into the sun”, the final track collapses in on itself, a pulsating, flickering black hole of electronic absence that is more astonishing than any cheap pile-on of violins.

Cave is still Cave, though. This rollercoaster ride comes bookended by two fables. Spinning Song takes an Elvis-like character and plants a tree in his garden: the launch of a suite of songs with all the force of myth, in which a flotilla of galleons sails into the predawn air and sea creatures are sprung from the deep. In among all this hallucinatory elegance sit everyday vignettes: listening to the radio in the kitchen, sitting in a car park.

At the end, Cave reprises the Buddhist tale of Kisa Gotami , a heartbroken mother combing each house in a village for a mustard seed with which to save her child, the Buddha’s proviso being that the seeds had to come from houses where there had not been a death.

She can’t find a single one. No one is untouched by loss. And this album finds Cave comforted by the universality of suffering, and the succour of those who gathered around him. “For we are not alone it seems, so many riders in the sky,” Cave observes on Galleon Ship. On Ghosteen Speaks, the spirit notes: “I think my friends have gathered here for me.”

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