Last night, I was in an extremely fortunate position to see 'An Evening With Nick Cave' at the Palace Theatre in London. Nick was on tour to promote his recently published book 'The Death Of Bunny Munro' - a macabre and cringe-making romp through the seedier side of life. The story is told from the point of view of a cosmetics salesman with no moral compass or self awareness of the sources of his own twisted and depraved actions and desires. He is driven by his infantile needs, egocentrically unaware of the emotional carnage he wreaks upon those about him. As if trying to form a protective barrier in my own mind, I read parts of the book through my fingers with clenched teeth. They were almost unreadable in their depravity and the shocks kept coming. After a while, I became numbed to the seedy unpleasantness and realised that I had been artfully propelled in to the same desensitised and disjointed state in which the protagonist Bunny Munro lived his life. What kept me reading was Nick's ability to place the reader under a subtle, lyrical and relentless barrage. He managed to squeeze laugh out loud black humour from the darkest and most unpleasant of scenarios (the Frida Kahlo monobrow incident comes to mind) and the result is a horrifying car crash of a book. Unsurprisingly, for a writer like Cave who is able to conjure up imagery that is both beautiful and awful and makes you want to scream and laugh in equal measure, 'The Death Of Bunny Munro' has been crafted in to a convulsive modern day morality tale that has real heart at its cloaked and concealed centre. I would highly recommend this book to those who like sharply intelligent, lyrical storytelling that leaves the reader emotionally bloody and bruised yet strangely satisfied. To sum up this book, it is a book that bites.
THE SETLIST:
1. Reading - Kylie Minogue Hotpants / Giftwrapped
2. West Country Girl
3. Hold On To Yourself
4. In To My Arms
5. Weeping Song
6. Babe You Turn Me On
7. Reading - The Frida Kahlo Monobrow Debacle
8. The Mercy Seat
9. Tupelo
10. God Is In The House
11. Are You The One I've Been Waiting For
12. Dig, Lazarus, Dig
13. Ship Song
14. Reading - Bunny Junior Lives Life Through His Encyclopedia
15. Love Letter
16. Lime Tree Arbour
17. Grinderman and goodnight
18. Standing ovation, shouting and 5 minutes of synchronous clapping and chanting
19. Reemergence on to stage with a "You guys are lucky. The last lot didn't get this. Thankyou, you're very kind."
20. Red Right Hand
21. Lucy
Nick orated the readings in a style reminiscent of the beat poets. The words ebbed and flowed rhythmically in to one long, hypnotic, gigantic monosyllable with a dreamy undercurrent of Warren Ellis' violin scrapings. During the particularly grotesque passages, Nick would start twitching and he appeared to be cringing away from the hyper-masculine, depraved imagery that had spilled forth on to the pages from the deep, dark whirlpools of his own mind. A small, almost imperceptible smile would occasionally ghost across his features.
The musician's line-up was long-time bassist of The Bad Seeds, Martyn P. Casey (formerly of The Triffids), brought in to allow Mick Harvey to take over the role of rhythm guitarist. Martyn played a 1962 Fender Precision Bass (as he told me after the show) with a few extra pops and whistles. Martyn's edgy and breakneck bass provided the trio with a remarkably solid rhythmic foundation on which to build their melodies and it was good to see a down to earth guy playing his instrument artfully and without any pretension or grandstanding - he was playing simply for the love of producing good music.
Then there was that second miscreant of The Dirty Three, Mr Warren Ellis. Warren did not disappoint either - twitchy, maniacally messianic and odd in the extreme. My eyes were drawn back to his crouched shenanigans again and again as he spent half the concert fiddling with wires and buttons around his feet. He also experimented with a drum kit which Nick informed us, he had received as a birthday present just a few days previous. Not a glimpse was to be had of his pointed, demonic face as it was hidden beneath a wild barnet of hair, a streaming moustache and flowing beard. A bastard child of a threesome consisting of Charles Manson, Saruman and Cousin It comes to mind however, with a creative talent as flaming and bright as his, as far as I'm concerned, he could have shown up in a crinoline dress, suspenders and high heels and he would still have my utmost respect and admiration. Warren's playing on violin, flute, mandocaster, guitar and drums (multi-instrumentalist git) was both a beautiful and eerily sad accompaniment to Nick Cave in one of his more reticent and quiet times. On this tour, their musical collaboration seems to have led them in to the sonic territory of their recent film scores - ‘The Proposition,’ ‘The Surgeon,’ ‘The Road’ and ‘The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.’
Finally, we have the man himself - Mr Nick Cave! Through no choice of my own, I always start out at concerts with the mentality of someone who has to be won over. I have a "So impress me then" attitude but in this case, I changed immediately in to “Let’s get it on.” A starkly lit and subconsciously threatening stage setup primed the audience and created a tangible sense of nervous anticipation. Nick came on in the darkness and a bright, white spotlight illuminated the piano. His first reading was so rhythmic and dynamic that the audience were caught off guard, quickly descending in to the kind of laughter seen in schoolchildren caught breaking a window. You know, the condemned kids lined up in front of the headmaster, trying desperately not to be the first to crack up and betray their guilt. Subsequent readings were delivered in an equally polished manner and the audience descended still further in to a sort of disorganised giggling and tittering near-hysteria as the macabre humour smashed its way through the carefully crafted facades of the audience members. Nick's piano playing flipped effortlessly between the beautiful and ugly, flowing and staccato. Unfortunately though, due to his early unaccomplished shriekings and squallings (which were only got away with because they were done with such violent and anarchic passion), many still underestimate the strengthening musicianship of a long in the tooth performer who has made his bones on the tour circuit time and time again. He has, in these later years kicked his piano playing and voice in to a most pleasing shape that he should feel proud of. What results is a most pleasing and surprising piano accompanying a deep and golden crooning tone reminiscent of the late, great Johnny Cash.
Nick is currently experimenting with a blonde Fender Telecaster and here, I am sad to say it, is the only chink in his impenetrable creative armour. He strums it in a unidirectional, monodecibel drone that reminds me of when I was 14 and trying desperately to plunk out 'Wish You Were Here ' on individual strings and clumsily hitting every other string in the near and distant vicinity. His guitar chops have definitely improved since the Dig Lazarus, Dig tour but possibly not to the point where he should be performing with it yet. Oh well, the do or die unpredictability of the man is what has made him so compellingly watchable over the decades. It's like watching a careering car on a narrow country road with a cackling maniac at the wheel and wondering whether it will make it round the next bend without hitting a tree. Never mind, nobody's completely perfect. In comparison to the purportedly perfect pink plastic androids with a one single shelf-life that the music and television industry inflicts on us by the dozen each year, Nick Cave is a refreshingly flawed, unpredictable performer who gleefully messes with peoples heads. If you ask him what his favourite music is, you will either get a measured, intellectual response that will become a classic quote or equally, you might get told to fuck off. He is not a man likely to spout off pre-agreed artists memoed over that morning by record company hacks in a bid to increase sales of a particular album.
For me, the highlight of the evening was the reticent, contemplative tone of the song performances and as usual, 'Ship Song' and 'In To My Arms,' reached in and ripped my heart out through my chest. The interactive nature of the evening provided a humorous if limited insight in to an enigmatic artist. Music commentators parp on about this artist or that artist in the sunset of their careers and how they will only ever fade away in to the ether. They wax back to artists who ended when their sun burned at its brightest - the John Lennons, the Elvis Presleys, the Jimi Hendrixes, the Janis Joplins, the Jim Morrisons, the Stevie Ray Vaughans, the Patsy Clines, the Kurt Cobains, the Tim / Jeff Buckleys, the Sandy Dennys, the Duane Allmans, the Ronnie Van Zants, the Otis Reddings, the Robert Johnsons, the Marc Bolans, the Eddie Cochrans, the Bessie Smiths, the Billie Holidays, the Nick Drakes, the Charlie Parkers, the Marvin Gayes, the Brian Jones’, the Sid Barretts, the Sam Cookes and the Buddy Hollys. The sad thing is that these people may have died before they were able to create their finest music and we will never have the privilege of hearing it. What music critics fail to realise is that sunset is the most beautiful, subtle and potentially surprising time of the day and old dogs definitely can learn new tricks. Johnny Cash’s American recordings, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Various Positions,’ Robert Plant’s ‘Raising Sand’ with Alison Krauss and T-Bone Burnett, Bob Dylan’s ‘Time Out Of Mind,’ Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas sets, Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland,’ Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Californication,’ Brian Wilson’s ‘Smile,’ Frank Sinatra’s ‘Songs For Young Lovers,’ Neil Young’s ‘Freedom’ and Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony. All of these artists were apparently washed up when they produced these gems according to the supposedly great critical minds of the time.
The more I see of Mr Nick Cave, the more I am convinced that he is a human-arachnid hybrid on the run after escaping from a macabre laboratory similar to the one in 'The Island Of Doctor Moreau.' A towering, gangly behemoth in black. At the 'Dig, Lazarus, Dig' concert, I thought he might seriously injure himself - balancing on the monitors with his spindly, oddly-jointed legs. He created a towering overhang, gleefully intimidating the audience like a spider about to pounce on its prey, emitting guttural shouts and animalistic howls. I thought he might fall but then, with a sigh of relief, I realised that if he did, he would just flip himself and land the right way up in that unsettlingly alien, arthropoid manner of members of the arachnid family to which he is so obviously related.
So my general feeling about the concert and literary reading is that it doesn't get any better than this and in whatever incarnation we see Nick Cave in the future, I now have an unshakeable faith in him that it will always be worth the ticket price. The soaring artistic genius that was on display that night was one of the things that makes it a true joy to be a sentient, living organism on this hurtling ball of rock.
Favourite audience interactions:
"Mr Cave, what do you think lies beyond death?"
"F*** knows, lets play another song."
"Nick, why did you choose to sing Ship Song?" - from a particularly obnoxious woman in the audience
"Because it's so f***ing good and so people like you can go urinate."
And later, before singing 'Grinderman' one of the least pleasant songs in his repertoire - "This one's for you sweetheart!"
"Do you have any advice on bringing up children?"
"F***, asking me that is like asking an undertaker to measure you for a suit. S***, have the courage to stand back and let them breathe and oh, don't molest them."
"If you could see anyone in concert, living or dead, who would you see?"
"Oh f***, Beethoven. Oh yeah, Elvis."
After a particularly long, mumbling and existentially impossible to interpret question from some egghead in the audience - "Yes. Well I didn't hear the question so I've got a 50% chance of being right. Yes."
"Mr Cave do you, like Bunny Munro, love pussy?"
A rambling answer ensues:
"Yes, I love pussy. I'm obsessed by pussy. Pussy rocks. Pussy is on my brain all the time. All I ever think about is Pussy. Pussy is what makes life worth living....." And so on and so on for a pant-wettingly funny, excessive duration.
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