I first
heard Nick Cave in the summer of 1988, a little late given his career
up to that point. Like a lot of the music I was discovering at that
time it came from my roommate Steve’s record collection. I had left
my grad school apartment in May but was going back frequently to
visit my friends. While there Steve played Kicking Against the
Pricks, a collection of cover songs. I remember liking the sound
of it, but it was background music to the weekend and didn’t sink
in. I left there with a cassette with Your Funeral, My Trial
on one side and Tender Prey on the other. The Mercy Seat
was the first Nick Cave song I really listened to. By the time Up
Jumped the Devil, the second track on the album, was over I was a
confirmed fan. Since that time Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have
remained in the uppermost echelon of musicians I’m into.
I saw
him on Thursday night at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh. While
I admit that I’m riding high on the adrenaline I want to say that
this was simply one of the single best concert experiences I have
ever had... and I’ve been to a lot of shows. This is not the first
time I’ve seen Nick, but the fifth, including his only other
appearance in the Pittsburgh area with Lollapalooza in 1993. I want
to talk a little bit about the specifics of this show, and then tie
it in with a broader context of Nick and his work.
First
just let me get my complete fanboy moment out of the way. I had paid
what for me is a pretty high price for this ticket. I was down close to the stage, but off to one side. It would have been a great
seat, except that speaker stacks blocked my view of about 80% of the
stage.
I was
feeling pretty pissy about the whole thing when the concert began.
Nick came out and sat in a chair at the front of the stage and
performed Anthrocene. His presence was great, but I really wanted to
be able to see the Bad Seeds as well. At the beginning of the second
song he stalked along the front of the stage, motioning for everyone
to move closer. My seat was kind of crap, so along with a lot of
other people I moved.
Much better.
There
were crates of some sort along the floor in front of the stage,
allowing Nick to come even closer by standing on them. During the
second song he moved to a crate right in front of me and began
singing to our segment of the crowd. Next thing I knew he had leaned
onto my shoulder and stretched himself out over the crowd. I stood
there, one hand on his chest directly over his heart, and the other
bracing his side, supporting his weight while he sang. So, while I
still can’t say I’ve met Nick Cave, I can say I’ve held him.
I was
not alone. Nick spent a lot of time in the crowd. I mean really in
the crowd. He walked into the seats, and over them, held in place
with the hands of many of us who were down front. It was the most
intimate show of his I’ve ever seen.
Nick is not a stranger to mingling with the audience. Early videos of him with his band The Birthday Party, show him completely engulfed by the small crowds, with seemingly no concern for his personal bodily boundaries or safety. This was very much in the spirit of Punk Rock confrontational theatrics. His performance style for much of his career has had the element of the confrontational to it. If not directly in people’s faces like in the early days, then certainly in terms of subject matter and intensity of performance.
This fit
his image as a fire and brimstone preacher of Apocalyptic visions.
His image, and this was a big part of what appealed to me way back
when, was that of a larger than life, mythic wandering doomsayer. He
was the offspring of a world created by Johnny Cash, William Faulkner, and Manly Wade Wellman. The world he created through his
lyrics and music (and his poetry and novels), was one where God and
the devil were engaged in daily warfare, one populated by angels and
demons, both made manifest in the actions of people and their own
virtues and vices. It was dark and thunderous and dangerous, yet
redemption and salvation were both possible down in the mud of our
dark desires. His concerts often had the ambiance of a tent revival
or a faith healing. For his fans they were both.
The new
show still is, but there is a difference. His interactions with the
crowd were more of an embrace than an attack. He was calling people
in instead of pushing them away. His approach was more confessional
than confrontational. This change is not completely new. In a spoken
word piece entitled The Flesh Made Word he described his own
journey using the Bible as a metaphor. The early Nick was the Old
Testament, frightening and judgmental wrath of God Nick, while he
saw himself moving into the New Testament love and compassion of
Christ Nick. Both sides are still definitely present, but the tent
revival I saw this week was far more about building a community of
love and support than it was about fear.
There
are reasons for this. Nick has been wandering in a wilderness of loss
and grief recently. In 2015 his fifteen year old son Arthur fell from
a cliff and died. The documentary, One More Time With
Feeling, deals overtly and honestly with the aftermath of this.
Nick went back to work in the studio, and Skeleton Tree, the new album, is now marinated
with loss and sadness. We see Nick, his wife Susie, and Arthur’s
twin brother Earl throughout, trying to move on with life in the
midst of grief. I have seen and read a lot of interviews with Nick
throughout the years. He has always been someone who was powerful and
larger than life. He was self assured, and fiercely intelligent, and
a master wordsmith. In the film he appears lost and broken, a man of
words who simply can’t find any to express his new world. We see
the process of recording, where Nick seems more vulnerable than ever
before. His voice breaks with emotion many times, but these takes
were kept for the final release. While it is a difficult film to
watch it is ultimately uplifting. Nick and his family make a
conscious decision to live their life, honoring Arthur and not
forgetting him.
‟Everything
is not OK, but that's OK, right? If things go on, you know, if anyone
is interested, the records go on and we still do what we do, um, and
the work goes on. And in that respect, things continue. A belief in
the good in things, in the world, in ourselves evaporated. But you
know, after a while, after a time, Susie and I decided to be happy.
As happiness seemed to be an act of revenge. An act of defiance. To
care about each other. And everyone else. And be careful. To be
careful with each other and the ones around us.”
The
concert was this idea made flesh. He seemed happy on stage. He
interacted with the crowd more than I have ever seen him do before.
He bantered with people, touched them. He didn’t just come out into
the crowd, he invited people into his space, allowing himself to be
held by the audience, to be buoyed up by them and their love, and in
return, gathered in the community he had created, he shouted his
defiance to the heavens.
The show
itself was a mix of the new and the old, with a noticeable gap of
anything from the mid 90s until the last two albums. As a long time
fan, if Nick had asked me personally which of the old songs I wanted
to hear, he pretty much did everything that would have been on my
list. He has always been able to transition seamlessly between the
furious and the funereal and this was no exception. After four of his
newer, more atmospheric, but no less powerful, songs he said ‟I
wanna tell you about a girl,” and launched into From Her to
Eternity, and this driving song about obsession and stalking and
murder brought down the house. This was followed immediately by the
sound of distant thunder from the stage and I knew that we were in
Tupelo.
The
decision to perform this song was one of the most surprising for me.
It’s one of his classics and a regular feature of his concerts. But
the recent details of his life has given it new context. While a lot
of Skeleton Tree was written before Arthur’s death many of
the lyrics seem prescient given what happened. It is impossible to
listen to the album without this event infusing your interpretation
of it. What is more fascinating to me is how this can now color our
perceptions of his previous work as well. The lyrics of Tupelo play
with the idea of how we mythologize real people, particularly modern
rock stars. The song conflates Elvis with Christ, the King who will
rise again. For years some people did not believe that Elvis was
dead, and he was treated with a religious fervor. Elvis was a twin.
His minutes-older sibling died in childbirth. The imagery of the dead
twin runs throughout the song, now conveying the extra resonance of
Cave’s own twin sons, one of whom is gone. In the raging elemental
fury of the performance I found myself emotionally gut-punched by the
new meanings of these lyrics, of which Nick has to be very aware.
‟Well
Saturday gives what Sunday steals,
And a
child is born on his brothers heels,
Come
Sunday morn the first-born dead,
In a
shoebox tied with a ribbon of red.”
The
final repeated refrain, changed slightly from the recorded version,
of, ‟Oh mama rock your lil’ one slow, Oh mama hold your baby,”
was being sung with full, lived knowledge of how easy it is to lose
that child.
He
followed Tupelo with Jubilee Street, from the 2013 album Push the
Sky Away. This song in particular felt like Nick
shouting his defiance. Interspersed with the repeated refrain, ‟Look
at me now,” he seemed to be addressing Death directly, speaking of
his transformation, the alchemy of his loss producing gold.
‟I am
alone now.
I am
beyond recriminations.
The
curtains are shut.
The
furniture has gone.
I am
transforming.
I am
vibrating.
I am
glowing.
I am
flying.
Look at
me now!”
The
Weeping Song is a favorite of mine from his album The Good
Son. It has always spoken to the idea of true sadness and grief
in this world. Twenty-five years ago Nick knew that, ‟True weeping
is yet to come.”
Former Bad Seed Blixa Bargeld is the other man in this video.
He has not been with the band for many years.
Into
My Arms is perhaps my favorite
love song. It is a paean of romance sung by a skeptic, acknowledging
the one thing he can truly believe in. It echoes a lot of what lives
in my head and heart and has long held a special place for me and one
other. You know who you are.
I can’t
stress enough that although there was a lot of sad, grief-filled
content to this show, it was not a dirge. It was a celebration, not
just of Arthur, but of life, and love, and perhaps above all else,
the idea of community and all of us taking care of each other and
supporting our friends. I said earlier that it seemed that Nick was
inviting us into his space, breaking the barrier of the stage and
audience dichotomy by joining us on the floor. This was taken to it’s
logical conclusion during the final number, Push the Sky Away.
Once again Nick began to gesture for the crowd to come closer, even
though we were already as close to the stage as we could be. When he
took a woman’s hand and helped her onto the stage, then kept
gesturing, his intentions became clear. He was inviting us to join
him, physically onstage. About a hundred of us did so. I stood in
this crowd with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, an impromptu chorus,
singing along with him as he closed the show with what became a hymn
for everyone there.
‟And
some people say it’s just rock and roll,
Oh but
it gets you right down to your soul.
You’ve
gotta just keep on pushing and keep on pushing and
Push the
sky away.”
Set
List:
Anthrocene
Jesus
Alone
Magneto
Higgs
Boson Blues
From Her
to Eternity
Tupelo
Jubilee
Street
The Ship
Song
Into My
Arms
Girl in
Amber
I Need
You
Red
Right Hand
The
Mercy Seat
Distant
Sky
Skeleton
Tree
Encore:
The
Weeping Song
Jack the
Ripper
Stagger
Lee
-->
Push the
Sky Away
