Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds review, All Points East, Victoria Park – still one of the best live bands around
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ first UK arena tour last autumn was a triumph. After years of never quite transcending cult hero status, the band stepped up to larger venues and were vindicated by full houses and glowing reviews.
On Sunday, the band took another step up, headlining a sold-out show for 40,000 fans in London’s Victoria Park as part of the inaugural All Points East festival. Cave once commented that the band only occasionally “graze shoulders with fashionability”. On the basis of their recent trajectory, their shoulders are not merely being grazed but given a full on Thai massage. Under glorious east London skies and with Patti Smith as their support act, this show felt like “an event”. The anticipation among the devoted crowd was immense.
So did they deliver? In spades. It wasn’t an easy gig. Rather, it was like a 90-minute sheep dip in fire, brimstone, murder and romance. You emerged blinking, unsure what had just happened. But you wanted more.
The Bad Seeds formed in 1983 in Australia from the ashes of post-punk band The Birthday Party. Their music melds garage rock, art rock and the blues, but it stretches in multifarious directions, often defying categorisation. And so it was with this show. One minute you were being flayed by brutal rhythms, such as during From Her To Eternity; the next you were being lifted by gorgeous ballads like Into My Arms.
What binds the songs are Cave’s lyrics. They’re shot through with foreboding and biblical allusions that are as intense as his singing voice. Wearing his signature dark suit and white shirt with oversized collar, Cave played the frazzled preacher role to a T. With one foot aloft on the crowd barrier as he reached out over his adoring masses, it was as though a malevolent Elvis had joined forces with Bishop Reverend Michael Curry and donned a Harry Hill collar.
Red Right Hand, which is the theme song for Peaky Blinders, became something of an unlikely anthem. And we had three songs from Skeleton Tree, the 2016 album recorded in the aftermath of Cave’s son’s death. Jesus Alone was unbelievably raw.
Kylie Minogue came on for a rare rendition of Where the Wild Roses Grow, one of the darkest and most beautiful love songs of the last 25 years. Never have I heard 40,000 people sing in unity to a song so bleak. Cave gave Minogue a rose and east London gave her their hearts. But the moment was trumped by the stage invasion during Stagger Lee, when hundreds of people joined Cave to dance to the song about a brutal murder in the first half of last century. Bizarrely, it felt celebratory. It was that kind of night.
At 14 songs, the show felt too short. But it cemented the Bad Seeds’ reputation as one of the best live bands around. People wanted an “event”. They certainly got one.
