Waldbühne, Berlin, Germany29th June 2022
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
At this beautiful summer evening, the Waldbühne, one of Berlin’s biggest open-air stages, was sold-out. It was a very diverse audience which filled the ranks, something not so surprising given the fact that NICK CAVE’s music is so multi-faceted that probably most people can at least find a couple of songs of their liking, as one spectator commented.
Founded in 1983 by nobody less than Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld and Mick Harvey, NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS now consist of Nick Cave (vocals), Warren Ellis (various instruments), Thomas Wydler (percussion), Marty Casey (bass), George Vjestica (guitars) and Jim Sclavunos (percussion, vocals). NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS are well-known for their dark and melancholic style. Their songs often deal with love, loss and belief and are full of religious metaphors and vivid images. They were known to a broader non-subcultural public with the duet with KYLIE MINOGUE, ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’, and the album ‘Murder Ballads’.
Music and Performance
NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS have so much more to offer than just a few hits. The expectations were high at this evening, and NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS more than fulfilled them. Nick appeared quite punctually at 19:45 and in an instant, the audience’s enthusiasm was aroused. It is incredible how this musician manages to transport his energy and passion for his vocation to the public. Whereas Nick was carefully dressed in a dark suit, his three background singers displayed gorgeous glittering dressed - two in white and one in pink. A Steinway piano built the centre of the stage, and Nick played the initial accords of most songs at it, a new keyboarder assisting him.
After starting the concert with the energetic ‘Get Ready For Love’, the next songs were mostly quieter ones, with the remarkable and very emotional performance of ‘O Children’ being one of my personal highlights. Although the sixth song, ‘Bright Horses’, is also a quieter and rather melancholic one, parts of the audience started pogoing, surely due to the high spirits the band managed to generate. Mr. Cave did not hesitate to shake hands with the first rows and interacted a lot with the people, taking flowers, making jokes about ambiguous statements written on placards, and animating the public to sing, clap hands - and cry. There were several songs where Nick made the gesture of wiping tears out of his eyes, accompanied by a sobbing “Cry, cry, cry” and followed by the request “Just breathe”. He did that, example given, at song number seven, ‘I need you’, or during ‘Tupelo’.
After a few songs, he presented the keyboarder, introducing her with the words: “She is our new pianist. She is very good. She is shy. Her name is Carly. She does not like attention”, which was followed by lots of applause and laughter, also from the pianist herself. At the eighth song, ‘Waiting for you’, Nick enchanted the audience with a furious piano solo, joined by a background singer. To my personal joy (and not only mine, judging from the reactions of the visitors next to me), ‘Carnage’, the song by NICK CAVE and WARREN ELLIS, was also played - not the only Nick and Warren cover played this evening, since ‘White Elephant’ built the last song of the regular setlist. But before that, there were many other highlights, although to be honest, the virtuoso performance made it quite difficult to pick out special ones, since one may be tempted to call all songs a highlight.
The energetic ‘Tupelo’ was encountered with a lot of enthusiasm, and Warren started swinging his violin. After the captivating ballad ‘The Ship Song’, dealing with love and trust, another of my personal favourites, the next song, ‘Higgs Boson Blues’, marked one of the climaxes of Nick’s interactions with the public, since he held hands with one female visitor who was riding on the shoulders of another spectator. Cave started playing harmonica at ‘City of Refuge’, relating that he learnt said instrument in the times of the lockdown. During this song, the background singers came forward, dancing and moving and spreading their good vibes. After finishing the concert with ‘White Elephant’, the public yelled for a “Zugabe” (encore), a girl next to me shouting “play it all again from the start”.
The band reappeared soon and the first song of the encore was the beautiful ballad ‘Into My Arms’, which interweaves religious motifs and a love declaration in an intricate pattern. Finishing the first encore with ‘Ghosteen Speaks’, NICK CAVE thanked “the bad seeds”, “the good seeds” and “you all”. But the concert was not finished yet. During a second encore, he played another of my favourites, ‘Henry Lee’, with one of the background singers accompanying him and outstretching a bunch of flowers to him. This outstanding concert ended with ‘Mermaids’, again with a few harmonica accords. About two and a half hours of great music and performance had come to an end, but, as Nick said, they will come back to Berlin. So, do not miss the concert of NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS if you have the opportunity to attend it!
Setlist
01. Get Ready for Love
02. There She Goes, My Beautiful World
03. From Her to Eternity
04. O Children
05. Jubilee Street
06. Bright Horses
07. I Need You
08. Waiting for You
09. Carnage (originally from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis)
10. Tupelo
11. Red Right Hand
12. The Mercy Seat
13. The Ship Song
14. Higgs Boson Blues
15. City of Refuge
16. White Elephant
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17. Into My Arms
18. Vortex
19. Ghosteen Speaks
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20. Jack the Ripper
21. Henry Lee (originally sung with PJ Harvey)
22. Mermaids
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Sound: 10
Light: 9
Total: 9.8 / 10
All pictures by Eleytheria “Luna” Heine
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