Nick Cave : Classic or Dud ?

I concur, the last Nick I loved was the 2nd Grinderman LP. He's on his own artistic journey but it's not one that I find compelling. I guess I just miss the intensity and vague danger of his old work.

He’s deeply in love with himself as an allegorical fabulist, but the stories are trite and boring (cf his novels as well). Coupled with the Christlike pose struck in his goodwill-to-all-men missives … nah. Hope you enjoyed the coronation pal.

his lyrics have always been the worst thing about his art and it's basically a wonder that i can tolerate them at all really

outro sounds horrible

Daughter got sent a pre-sale link for the new arena tour, only seats available to her a hour in were back row of the side seating near the back so possibly the worst seats in the whole place. ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR POUNDS. Before fees. Fuck that shit.

my partner got a standing one for £75 which i think is about the same as last time, maybe £5-10 more.

which is still expensive imo!

£144 is insane.

They might have started there but dynamic pricing and ticket bots just pushed them through the roof.

She's going to try again on general sales on Friday and has set herself a £100 upper limit, which is still too rich for my blood.

Is visiting Europe possible for her? See a great city, get slightly cheaper Nick Cave tickets?

That's an option, or she could just get over it. </caring dad>

xp my first show was a few years back at an outdoor show at castle in the Austrian countryside and i can’t imagine wanting to see it anywhere else, let alone a packed theater.

He’s deeply in love with himself as an allegorical fabulist, but the stories are trite and boring (cf his novels as well). Coupled with the Christlike pose struck in his goodwill-to-all-men missives … nah. Hope you enjoyed the coronation pal.

yeah...for me the process is when I was younger I considered him a great lyricist. then two things happened: he got older and so did I. the fiery pyrotechnics of his younger writing gave way to his version of mature writing, but he's not really as good at that, and the pyrotechnic stuff ("Mutiny!" and most of the first Bad Seeds album typify what I mean by that -- hyperverbal excited stuff dense with lurid imagery) I'd kind of outgrown, though I can still get a kick out of it. I'll go to the mat for him as a performer, I think he has few peers and even continues to grow, but as a writer that's just not what I'm into as a grownup. it has taken me years to admit this.

We got standing tickets for Glasgow and they were about £72 each all told, with excruciating fees of course.

She must just be unlucky with Cardiff then.

I didn't look at seated prices at all, but the presale standing allocation did seem to sell out quite quickly.

Foi Na Cruz was the beginning of the end for my liking him. Everything Birthday Party & the first four Bad Seeds albums (Tender Prey maybe, if there's room left) = desert island, the rest: not so much (even though there were some good tracks here and there, it just wasnt the same anymore) - I'm not hating on artists who get clean or start a family, it just how it turns out that "the tormented artist makes the best art" cliché didn't come out of thin air.

Foi na cruz is one of my fav bad seeds songs. Power ballad!!!

I love that you love that :-)

I'm the opposite, finding the best parts of the 21st-century albums what works best for me ("Higgs Boson Blues" and "Push The Sky Away" and more). The lurid earlier songs, maybe because I first heard them in audiences with frat-like guys singing along to "Stagger Lee," feel more distanced from the violence and death in the lyrics, and the most recent ones treat them as tangible.

As a lyricist I find him well-intentioned but ultimately pretty mid (as the kids say). When his music was more furious he could at least fake his way into matching it (see: Grindeman, which pretty effortlessly reverts back closer to formative form), but his more subdued current mode (I assume; I haven't heard the new one) brings the focus squarely on the words, and imo they're just not as compelling as intended. Which is odd, because I do often find him pretty thoughtful and perceptive and intelligent, even funny, it's just not translating to the albums.