Nick Cave responds to a fan who leaves the live show because he is emotional

Through his website “The Red Hand Files”, a channel used to dialogue and share his thoughts with his fans, Nick Cave responded to a fan who said he left the show early because he was too “excited” during performing “Into my arms”.

“I was playing ‘Into my arms’ for my girlfriend. I came to your concert in Birmingham, but I had to leave early. It was too emotional for me and it reminded me of the wonderful moments I had with my girlfriend, moments that I know I can’t get it back”, reads the message sent to the Australian singer-songwriter by Stellan from Nantwich in England, referring to the concert by Cave and his Bad Seeds last November 15th, part of the tour in support of the new album “Wild god” (here is our review).

Emphasizing that he often notices the intensity of emotions felt by fans during one of his concerts, Nick Cave responded to the message as follows:

“Live music is a ritual that evokes a common emotional response to which we associate our singular experiences. When I perform on stage, I see these unique and particular emotions expressed on every face. This is one of the great privileges of being a frontman , and it’s why I spend so much time close to the audience. I love watching the emotions on people’s faces: joy, sadness, longing, laughter, fear, anger. The concert becomes powerful and empathetically transactional as we experience the therapeutic nature of music. While the show does evolves, a coming and going of kindness emerges, energized by our mutual consideration, and healing begins.

A live concert can feel overwhelming, even scary, because its emotional power can suddenly bring out our most buried experiences. But feelings are meant to be felt, that’s what they’re for. We heal by acknowledging our emotions and test the resilience of our hearts by lingering in the unbearable. It’s something that music can help us do. We discover that our hearts are much stronger than we thought, and what we thought was unbearable wasn’t at all. Music brings out these underground feelings and at the same time saves us from them.

I’m glad you came to the Birmingham concert, Stellan, but I think it was a missed opportunity to ‘leave before’ an emotion had run its course and done its restorative work. I understand that it must be painful to feel that those ‘great times’ are gone, but they aren’t, there are many more to come. There will be others who break hearts too, but hearts break harder. We must not retreat from our feelings. We have to face them. Try them. Improve. To paraphrase Samuel Beckett: suffer, suffer again, suffer better. That’s one of the things live music allows us to do: grieve and heal at the same time.

My advice? Get back out there. Live life to the fullest and stay for the whole damn show. It’s incredible.

Love, Nick”