There are those who love Nick Cave and those who have never seen him live
“Stop! You’re beautiful!” shouts Nick Cave. It is the choral finale of “Conversion”, but it is also the blessing that the singer imparts to his audience, several times, at different moments of the concert at the Forum in Assago. It may be the first time you see it, or the twentieth: but you are overwhelmed by the intensity of a performance and a concert that is both the essence of live music and one of a kind. Just a band on stage and a frontman who holds the stage like no other.
Nick Cave returns to Milan after 7 years: in 2017 it was his first performance at the Forum and at the time the transition from clubs to arenas seemed like a gamble. Today it is his natural space, inhabited by an increasingly expanded version of the Bad Seeds, a 10-piece band that moves from noisy rock to gospel with class and power. Even with 11 thousand people he manages to create two and a half hours of community and collective transcendence.
A ritual of blessing and redemption
The evening begins with Murder Capital, a band with two albums behind them – but ready to make the leap to a wider audience, with dry, dark and refined rock at the same time. They are Irish and are ready to become the next Fontaines DC.
At 9 o’clock the Bad Seeds arrive: the opening is with “Frogs”. Cave is sitting at the piano but gets up almost immediately. The ritual begins with the audience: he runs on the catwalk which puts him in contact with the audience from the stage, without barriers. He seeks him, touches him, looks him in the face with a mutual transfer of energy that will transform into a liturgy of blessing and redemption.
3 songs from “Wild god” at the opening, 8 throughout the concert: they sound more powerful live, in particular the title track, faster and with Cave ordering the audience “Bring your spirit down!”.
Behind him and to the sides of the screens: during these songs they use displays and underline words from the lyrics, to give them even more strength: it could be a karaoke effect, but instead it is sober and functional. There are no other effects or visuals: the concerts are shows but the Bad Seeds one is based on the pure strength of the performance and a crazy band. Then when the classics arrive, from “From her to eternity” to “Tupelo”, we fly even higher.
Some relatively weaker moments in the central part, with the setlist drawing from the Bad Seeds’ most recent and minimal records and from “Carnage” from the album with Warren Ellis. Who is the charismatic leader of the band, a show within a show when he takes the stage with the guitar (“Jubilee street” with the usual thrilling acceleration at the end) or with the violin.
The ending brings us back towards perfection: “Red right hand” starts slow, almost soulful, then explodes. It is followed by “Mercy seat”, overwhelming, and by “White elephant” which starts with noise and opens into a gospel ballad with singers who come down to the front row. Encore with “O wow wow” dedicated to bad girl Anita Lane on the screen, with her images in the background. Then “Papa won’t leave you Henry”, and the final blessing with “The weeping song” and “Into my arms”, the latter alone on the piano, with the lights on and the audience first in religious silence and then singing in chorus.
A Nobel to Nick Cave
In Nick Cave’s music and concerts there is everything: there is the story and the spiritual imagery of the lyrics, there is a sound that goes from threatening and disturbing to reassuring, a repertoire of songs like few others, the form and the power of a performance that is both theatrical and visceral.
If one day they decided to give another Nobel to a musician, he would be the ideal candidate, for how he combines the literariness of writing with the primordial strength of rock. In the meantime, let’s enjoy him in this state of grace, which he knows how to transfer to his audience, who comes out blessed and converted: “You’re beautiful”, precisely.
As they said about Springsteen: there are those who love Nick Cave and those who have never seen him live.