Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Date: 2017-01-31
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Venue: Perth Arena
Source: AUD
Quality: 8/10


Recorded By: pyometronguts (petersell)

Recorded with: SP-SMC-8 SOUND PROFESSIONALS PREMIUM AUDIO TECHNICA SLIMLINE STEREO MICROPHONES Cardiod (with low sensitivity modification) plus SP-SPSB-11 and bass roll-off at 69Hz) -> Sony PCM M10 -> wav (24BIT/48hz) -> Adobe Audacity (volume boost, mild compression)-> CD Wave (track splitting) and to .FLAC(level 8) -> You


Seated - upper gallery centre of stage


Recording - audience recording, minor crowd noise/chatting/coughing.

Set List

01. Anthrocene
02. Jesus Alone
03. Magneto
04. Higgs Boson Blues
05. From Her To Eternity
06. Tupelo
07. Nick Talks 1
08. Jubilee Street
09. Nick Talks 2
10. The Ship Song
11. Nick Talks 3
12. Into My Arms
13. Nick Talks 4
14. Girl In Amber
15. I Need You
16. Red Right Hand
17. The Mercy Seat
18. The Distant Sky
19. Skeleton Tree
20. Nick Talks 5 Band Intro
21. Weeping Song
22. Stagger Lee
23. Push The Sky Away

Press Reviews

Nick Cave recognises the versatility at the heart of rock'n'roll. As the legend walked on-stage with The Bad Seeds, the mood hung in the Entertainment Centre, unmoving.

At 23, Cave was a vitriolic viper. The Birthday Party violently lobbed themselves into crowds, knocked out ivories, and capitalised on brooding gothic textures. At 59, Cave took to this Adelaide performance with a resolute reflection, a point of difference, but with that constant jarring rock laced feedback.

The band eased into their set with tracks from their new record, Skeleton Tree. As Cave poured himself over the piano the punters were unsure whether to dance or not. But Cave waved his hands and led them through the darkness, into Jesus Alone. Amid the pain, he even quipped “that was truly Frank Sinatra.” In the chorus of Higgs Boson Blues, a slow-moving blues-infused crescendo, he chastised a punter snapping videos a foot away from him. “Get your fucking camera away,” he disappointingly said. “Is that what you do late at night with your husband?”

Caught up in the energy of the band's older tracks, the ensemble played Tupelo: a narrative of screeching guitars, nightmarish growls, and angry strings. With Warren Ellis driving the harmonics, Cave windmilled his limbs around the stage and into Jubilee Street. He carefully navigated himself between the piano and the mic, while hanging over the crowd with baritone chops and a complex countenance.

Cave is known for his sensitivity, omnipresent in Into My Arms — a classic Bad Seed song that was chorused by the crowd — followed by Girl In Amber. As the song simmered, the band’s back-up vocals became increasingly more poisoned. To mitigate the obvious pain, punters swayed in collective catharsis; it felt like everyone in the Entertainment Centre felt the band’s heart stop.

As Cave threw his mic beside him, jolted his body into an electric convulsion, and purred into the crowd, women (and men) yelled “we love you Nick”. Unsurprisingly, Australia’s national treasure charmingly grimaced in return, before charging into the hand-clapping The Weeping Song, and the terrifyingly sexual Stagger Lee. And as he sung, “you better get down on your knees and suck my dick”, a lady literally grabbed his junk. His reply: “This is sexual fucking harassment in the workplace." He added, “let’s get a support circle together and hug it out”, which was met with cheers rather than disappointment.

Despite the libido, they ended their set poetically with Push The Sky Away. As their performance began with the sombre, it ended cyclically and optimistically with the looped hook: “You’ve got to just / Keep on pushing”. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds created a night that was sublime, surreal, and fantastically overwhelming.



CONCERT

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Perth Arena

REVIEW SIMON COLLINS

4

“Some people say it’s just rock’n’roll,” Nick Cave sang to around 6000 fans at Perth Arena on Tuesday night. “But it gets you right down to your soul.”

Was it duty, necessity, catharsis or sheer bloodymindedness that drove the 59-year-old rock deity to “push the sky away” and embark on another tour with the Bad Seeds, which he calls “the greatest band on the planet”?

Cave completing 16th studio album Skeleton Tree after the tragic death of his 15-year-old son Arthur was enough of a surprise.

That rock music’s so-called Prince of Darkness then decided to tour the chart-topping release seems almost unnecessary.

But Cave is more than a grieving parent. He’s an author, snappy dresser, ARIA Hall of Famer, Kylie Minogue duet partner and, as of last week, an Order of Australia recipient.

He’s also a dynamite performer.

After he followed the seven-strong Bad Seeds on stage, Cave performed Anthrocene seated, almost reading the Skeleton Tree track.

But he rose to his feet for the unsettling, swirling and dark Jesus Alone — possibly the most avant-garde song played at the arena.

Cave and co. hit their stride on Magneto, the frontman conducting the front rows as he sung the enigmatic line “It was the year I officially became the bride of Jesus” and the more direct, and revealing “Hard blues down there in the supermarket queues”.

After the three Skeleton Tree tracks, the gang unleashed an epic version of Higgs Boson Blues from 2013’s Push the Sky Away — their first Australian No. 1 album — followed by two abrasive mid-80s fan favourites in From Her to Eternity and Tupelo.

The sound was big, brutal and intense, with a little “slap” off the back wall of the venue on some more percussive tracks.

Arguably the highlight of the mesmerising performance came midway when 2013 single Jubilee Street slowly built to a maelstrom, Cave nearly accidentally clocking a roadie trying to sort out a microphone cord tangle.

The intensity of the newer tracks was not matched during two 90s classics The Ship Song (“A song that’s kind of old, kind of beautiful,” Cave said) and Into My Arms (“If you sing this one that would be great”).

However Red Right Hand and The Mercy Seat were insanely loud, with Warren Ellis inflicting all manner of violence on his violin.

Cave spent much of the gig precariously taunting the front rows, leaning and screaming over them.

“Put that away,” he ordered one punter filming the madness of Bad Seeds classic Stagger Lee during the encore. “You’re a big man, you don’t need that little phone.”

Sadness and beauty mingled with the sonic assaults, particularly on Skeleton Tree’s Distant Sky which featured the giant visage of Danish soprano Else Torp on the massive backing screen.

“They told us our gods would outlive us,” Cave intoned, perhaps invoking his recent misery. “But they lied.”

Gets you, doesn’t it, right down to your soul.