The Australian and his bad seeds made their comeback in Paris two years after a notable appearance at the Rock en Seine festival. With a catalog of songs augmented by the wonders that constitute “Wild God”, the new Bad Seeds album released this summer, Nick and his acolytes delivered a performance of staggering power and rare intensity. Narrative.
“Damn, how does a fucking Bad Seeds concert play out?” Nick Cave told us this summer. He had just completed three intimate dates in the futuristic setting of a Reykjavik venue, on the piano, accompanied by only Colin Greenwood on bass, and was thinking a little about a new monster tour which was to take him him, Warren Ellis and their acolytes in the four corners of the world to defend Wild Godtheir new album.
“It’s not something to take lightly, there are a whole series of challenges, you have to be ready to find yourself in certain states. If you think you just have to show up on stage and perform, you're wrong.”he continued, looking straight into our eyes, as if to say: “kid, I don’t think you really understand what commitment we’re talking about here”.
A gospel heat that will roast your insides
With Nick Cave, this is not our first dance, and yet we are still surprised, each time he puts a coin back into the machine and goes back on tour, to have the impression of witnessing the last concert ever. The show this Sunday, November 17, at the Accor Arena (Paris), was no exception. “Messianic” ; “biblical” ; “christian” ; “the mass”. The lexical field of religion will have largely been plowed at the end of Citizen Cave's performance yesterday, which closed the Europe and UK sequence of the Wild God Tour, which began last September in Oberhausen, Germany. How can you not be tempted by this crazy verbiage? For lack of anything better, it has the merit of circumscribing a whole section of the feelings which assail us throughout its two and a half hours of performance on the edge of the abyss, apocalyptic, but radiated with a gospel warmth that will roast your insides.
“I place too much value on live performances. For my own sake, but also because I believe it can really have an impact on the way people are made to feel about the world (…) I have the absolute certainty of seizing one of the last opportunities we have left to live an experience of transcendence here on earth”he said again, the Nick. As big as this room at the Accor Arena is, Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds have never seemed so close at hand. This hand, that of the Australian, lost in the forest of arms raised fervently in the front row, which also seems to bless the crowds, to anoint, erase the pangs and absolve its devoted apostles of all the sins of the world.
Wild God in the spotlight
After the very pastoral performance of the English from Black Country, New Road, who opened yesterday, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds arrived on stage accompanied by four backing vocalists and bassist Colin Greenwood (Radiohead). It is Frogs which will open the ball, taken from the latest album. The frogs, an allegory of joy, for good old Nick, finally out of the lacerated drones of Ghosteen (2019) and desolate landscapes of Skeleton Tree (2016). Will follow Wild Goda crushing piece that takes on all its excess on stage (“bring your spirit down”strikes the master like a damn expiatory mantra), then Song of the Lake. Before launching O ChildrenNick asks the audience to sing along with him. But it's too early, too astonishing to let go completely. Little moment of hesitation. Never mind, the Bad Seeds embark on a Jubilee Street which has never sounded so powerful, frightening. The room is devastated. Standing up, but overcome.
From Her to Eternity will add a layer. What intensity, damn, the singer won't last two more hours like that, doing goat jumps, smashing his microphone on the ground, delivering his body to the front rows like a wafer. It was necessary Long Dark Night et Cinnamon Horsestwo elegiac titles from Wild Godto catch one's breath (the degree of devotion remains the same nonetheless), before thundering the storm of a Tupelo replaying the birth of Elvis Presley as if it were the arrival on Earth of the Antichrist. I Need Youon the piano, twilight, will be dedicated to his wife Suzy and as for Red Right Hand and its recognizable tubular bells, it will ideally introduce The Mercy Seat. It is the grandiose and imposing White Elephant (extract from Carnage by Nick en Warren, released in 2021) which will conclude the set, before the encores. “I’ll shoot you in the fucking face!”
An experience of transcendence
The Bad Seeds go away and come back. O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)a tribute to Anita Lane, opens the ball, followed by Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry and of The Weeping Song. Determined to offer us one last suspended moment, Nick will evacuate the stage, to stand behind his grand piano and deliver a Into My Arms to piss you off for the rest of the year. Besides, it is not certain that the Cave did not wipe away a small tear himself.
“I have the absolute certainty of seizing one of the last opportunities we have left to live an experience of transcendence here on earth”he said. Mission accomplished.
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