Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
Civic Theatre, Newcastle
Wednesday 14 December 2022
Photographer + reviewer : Kevin Bull
Anticipation for this show, personally, was quite high. I had caught the Bad Seeds in Newcastle back in 2017 on a bit of a whim. The opportunity came up, so I made the trip north to be totally stunned by the show. I have been taking much more of an interest in Nick Cave since, with the Carnage album being a firm favourite of 2022.
With the lengthy set being dominated by Ghosteen and Carnage, it was a welcome live viewing of a body of work that has been with us only through isolation. The night begins with Ghosteen’s opening cut, ‘Spinning Song’, a slow build that ultimately fills the Civic Theatre with a cathedral-like soundscape, with Cave gesturing “I Love You” to the lucky ones up front.
The night was quite physical, more than I was expecting. What I mean is that The Bad Seeds show had shown me how Cave will get into the crowd, and sing to the 50 people standing right in front of him. It was great to watch him do it, but I could not see that happening at the Civic, and with the material.
‘White Elephant’ is a dark and menacing song, pointing a finger at you, threatening you. When Cave spits “if you every think of coming ’round here I’ll shoot you in the fucking face”, you know he’s not far off meaning it. The song’s joyous coda lifts the crowd to an early highlight.
It took about midway through the night for the aisles to be filled with people, those with the need to get that bit closer. With this, Cave now had his 50 people to sing to and we caught a glimpse of The Bad Seeds. You could see the connection, when he sung to you it was directly to you. When you reached out to him, and he sees you, grabs your hand and sings the next 2 lines, they are sung to you. When he walked through the crowd during ‘Hand of God’ to place his hand on people’s foreheads, you were seriously being touched.
The quite beautiful ‘Balcony Man’ became the closing comic relief to the main set with those in the balcony being instructed to yell out “BALCONY” every time it was sung. Quite silly, but very funny on a night like this.
I’m currently listening to the playlist of the night’s set, and we are at the encore, older songs like ‘Henry Lee’, ‘The Ship Song’ and ‘The Weeping Song’ make appearances, and Hey, it was an absolutely magic night with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Where else do you end the night with ‘Into My Arms’ being sung by 2000 people.
