They have NICK CAVE polls now? I want one!: The ILM Nick Cave Poll Voting Thread (#106 in a series)

Nick also on backing vocals on "Lost In Music".

He also features on "Vixo" by Anni(e) Hogan from 1985.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJZ_WW2wBZo

Nick also on backing vocals on "Lost In Music".

Yes, ta - a whole chorus of Seeds doing the hook, such as it is in that version iirc. The arrangement eschews nearly all the melodic elements in the original, leaning into the rhythm and counterpoint in the vocal lines, but so hard that Anita is basically grumbling and snarling counterpoint to herself while the blokes chant. Melody's no good to me!

(I was familiar with the Anita version before the Chic/Sledge original, and may not have returned to it since getting my disco ears)

I had always thought Nick's vocal was particularly prominent but listening again now and it indeed seems to be a chorus of Bad Seeds singing.

It's worth returning to - a perennial fave here.

abbatoir blues/lyre of orpheus is really such an immense album, possibly my favourite. the band and cave's songwriting are both at something of a peak there, incredible playing and manages to nearly summarise their whole career up to that point in its wide range of styles, while still pushing into new territory with the gospel choir which works wonders.

agreed to me it's his peak no question

also really benefits from fantastic production which they hadn't really had very much up until that point

There were always jokes, kind of sly, sometimes kind of camp, but I want to say that "Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus" felt like the breakthrough when everyone realized Nick Cave was often being funny.

"Eurydice appeared brindled in blood
And she said to Orpheus
If you play that fucking thing down here
I'll stick it up your orifice!"

Grinderman and "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" (which, yeah, is great) sort of continued in that vein, but for obvious reasons, perhaps, the last few have been less funny.

“There She Goes My Beautiful World” is a deep fave from Abbattoir Blues

more love for Abbatoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus here - when it came out I was fairly over Nick Cave but I borrowed a friend's car and it was in the CD player and I was poleaxed by how good it was, you immediately had to recognise it as a great achievement

ever since then I've felt he was a next-level artist with an uncommon ability to still produce career-best work after decades at the coalface - i don't know his recent albums well enough to decide if they qualify, but Jubilee Street is right up there IMO

(I don't know how that song works! on paper i don't much like the lyrics and the riff is more from a blues-rock derived place than I usually prefer - and I think the recorded version is okay - but played live it is just immense! obviously it's the build, and the band's control of the build, but there's some other kind of alchemy at work - the "I'm vibrating / I'm transforming" bit really feels earned and hits home in some way that's beyond my comprehension)

There were always jokes, kind of sly, sometimes kind of camp, but I want to say that "Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus" felt like the breakthrough when everyone realized Nick Cave was often being funny.

Murder Ballads has several outright comedy songs, and he did three extremely serious / boring records afterward. But finished the last one with Babe, I'm On Fire, which packs more jokeyness into one song than most songwriter's careers, and then multiplies the silliness with the video.



((sidebar on the topic of Cave's 80s bandmates and their female associates faux-disdainfully covering the classics, I'll throw an off-topic mention to Barry, Mick, Genevieve McGuckin and Rowland & Lydia Lunch on Some Velvet Morning))

^^ big fave of mine, but yes not eligible

yeah "jubilee street" is a real highlight of the last decade, especially the live version which goes much further with its build in intensity. "higgs boson blues" is similarly great. push the sky away has a few tracks that are a little dull, but the rest is very very good. ghosteen is even better as an album and a real career high-point imo, it's the most beautiful music of his career, though it did take me a little while to get into with how reserved it is. the two epics on the second disc are especially powerful.

one of the things keeping me from really exploring Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen is the (presumed) emotional intensity - I guess I feel like they need a kind of sustained engagement that isn't part of my regular listening practice (well, re singer-songwriter stuff - will listen to "difficult" instrumental music for hours) - ie they don't feel like records you can just chuck on while you're folding the laundry

and ofc part of this is the inability to mentally separate the content of the records from the tragic circumstances of their creation - I feel sure they are impressive works but, as with sad films, I have to be in a particular frame of mind to take that journey

i don't find them to be that an intense a listen, not in the way that something like mount eerie's a crow looked at me is. most of skeleton tree was written & recorded before his son's death and so while that certainly thematically hangs over the already bleak tone of the album, only "i need you" was written afterwards and is probably the most direct about it. while ghosteen does actually deal with his son's death much more, it's still poetic about things in typical cave fashion so it's not an overwhelming listen. musically it's incredibly pretty, especially compared to skeleton tree's bleak tone, which helps balance out the lyrical material too. i have actually listened to it while cooking a fair bit.

I only gave each of them a "let's see what this is like" listen too, cautious of not having the fortitude to commit on a listening-to-lyrics level

anyway here's a list of 70 things that most people will consider as "albums or EPs with Nick Cave as a primary author"

*braces for formatting fuckup*

1979 Door, Door (BND LP)
1979 Hee Haw (BND EP)
1980 Peel Session 1 (BP CD 2001) LIVE
1980 The Birthday Party (BND/BP comp with two exc tracks and a rare b-side)
1981 Peel Session 2 (BP EP 1987) LIVE
1981 Prayers On Fire (BP LP)
1981 Peel Session 3 (BP EP 1988) LIVE
1982 Drunk On The Pope's Blood (BP live EP) LIVE
1982 Junkyard (BP LP)
1982 Peel Session 4 (BP CD 2001) LIVE
1982 Live 81-82 (BP live comp of 2 gigs) LIVE
1982 Honeymoon In Red (Lydia Lunch/BP LP 1987)
1983 Pleasure Heads Must Burn (BP live VHS (+ bonus tracks on DVD)) LIVE
1983 Mutiny! (BP EP)
1983 Burnin' The Ice (Die Haut LP w/ NC)
1983 The Bad Seed (BP EP)
1984 From Her to Eternity (Bad Seeds LP)
1985 The Firstborn Is Dead (Bad Seeds LP)
1986 Kicking Against the Pricks (Bad Seeds LP)
1986 Your Funeral... My Trial (Bad Seeds LP)
1988 Tender Prey (Bad Seeds LP)
1988 And The Ass Saw The Angel (audiobook EP)
1989 Ghosts ...Of The Civil Dead (OST by NC/MH/BB)
1990 The Good Son (Bad Seeds LP)
1990 Acoustic Versions Of Songs From "Tender Prey" Bad Seeds EP
1992 Henry's Dream (Bad Seeds LP)
1992 What A Wonderful World (Bad Seeds EP credited to NC & Shane McGowan)
1992 Live At The Paradiso (Bad Seeds live VHS/EP) LIVE
1993 Live Seeds (Bad Seeds live album) LIVE
1994 Let Love In (Bad Seeds LP)
1996 Murder Ballads (Bad Seeds LP)
1996 To Have And To Hold (OST by BB/NC/MH)
1996 The Flesh Made Word (reading on NC CD 2000)
1997 The Boatman's Call (Bad Seeds LP)
1998 The Secret Life Of The Love Song (Cave/Ellis/White/Stenger recording on NC CD 2000)
1998 Live at the Royal Albert Hall (Bad Seeds live album) LIVE
2001 No More Shall We Part (Bad Seeds LP)
2002 Love Letter "Westside Sessions" EP (Bad Seeds live EP) LIVE
2003 Nocturama (Bad Seeds LP)
2003 God Is In The House (Bad Seeds live DVD) LIVE
2004 Abattoir Blues (Bad Seeds LP)
2004 The Lyre of Orpheus (Bad Seeds LP)
2005 The Proposition (OST CD by NC & WE)
2007 Grinderman (GM LP)
2007 The Abattoir Blues Tour (Bad Seeds live album / DVD) LIVE
2007 The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (OST CD by NC & WE)
2008 Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Bad Seeds LP)
2008 iTunes Live: London Sessions (Bad Seeds live EP) LIVE
2009 The Death Of Bunny Munro (7CD+DVD audiobook w NC/WE score)
2009 The Road (OST CD by NC & WE)
2009 White Lunar (disc 2 misc scores by NC & WE)
2010 Grinderman 2 (GM LP)
2012 Lawless (OST CD by NC & WE Present The Bootleggers)
2013 Push the Sky Away (Bad Seeds LP)
2013 Live from KCRW (Bad Seeds live album) LIVE
2014 West Of Memphis (OST CD by NC & WE)
2015 Loin Des Hommes (OST CD by NC & WE)
2015 The Sick Bag Song (2LP audiobook, no score)
2015 Live At Hammersmith Apollo (NC live album) LIVE
2015 Live At The Royal Albert Hall (NC live album) LIVE
2016 Hell or High Water (OST CD by NC & WE)
2016 Skeleton Tree (Bad Seeds LP)
2016 Shell Shock (opera by Nicholas Lens & Nick Cave: World Premiere Recording - Royal Opera House, La Monnaie, 2CD) LIVE
2017 Mars (OST CD by NC & WE)
2017 War Machine (OST CD by NC & WE)
2017 Wind River (OST CD by NC & WE)
2018 Kings (OST CD by NC & WE)
2018 Distant Sky: Live in Copenhagen (Bad Seeds live film / EP) LIVE
2019 Ghosteen (Bad Seeds LP)
2020 Idiot Prayer (Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace) (solo live album / film) LIVE

Bad Seeds LPs in bold so that folks who don't want to consider balloting anything else can skim

Something I've never quite been able to put my finger on is how Cave always seemed to play theaters or large clubs here (Chicago), up through "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!", but ever since then he's been playing huge venues, even arenas, of all places, ironically supporting his least likely room-filling albums, imo. I can't figure out what changed for him to go from decades of cult success to suddenly becoming a hot ticket at big places. (And yeah, I know the new songs work really well in those big rooms, against all odds, but the barnstormers do still blow things up bigger.)

my impression is it was mostly in europe where he's recently graduated into playing arenas, while he's still just playing large theatres/clubs etc. in the us mostly? i'm not quite sure exactly what it was either, but the huge critical success of skeleton tree probably had something to do with it, since it was really overwhelmingly acclaimed to a degree far beyond anything he'd done for a long time. seems like it was a relative commercial success too.

in Australia he took a big step up in venue size with Skeleton Tree too - to me it felt quite intentional, like playing bigger venues had probably been commercially viable for a while but they'd preferred playing in more intimate rooms?

I've been seeing Nick Cave shows (too!) regularly since Henry's Dream - and the Push The Sky Away show was in the smallest room I've ever seen him play (I think around 2000 capacity).

yeah afaik hes not doing that many arenas in the US (if any)

Hmm, looks like the postponed 2020 north american tour would have taken him to a few arenas in the usual places, plus larger places in smaller cities.

Here (in Glasgow) it took him around 25 years to go from playing 1000 - 2500 capacity venues. In 2015 he played to 2500 and then in 2017 he sold out a 13000 capacity venue.

ah was the rest of australia a step up in venue size for skeleton tree? here in brisbane he just played riverstage (a large amphitheatre), which is what he'd done the last few tours too. i wasn't able to see him though unfortunately. i hope it won't be too long before they tour ghosteen here if covid gets under control in the rest of the world next year.

I have (rescheduled) tickets to see him back at that 13000 capacity venue in April 2021 which seems highly likely to be rescheuled yet again.

also i do remember that his manager talked about how he'd made a concerted effort to market him as an iconic elder stateman of rock figure this decade and that effort certainly seemed to work

Looks like he's booked in arenas through spring 2021 in the UK.

My brother in law got me a shirt from Cave's show at the Sydney Opera House in ... 2016? That place is big, but not arena huge or anything, though I assume it was largely picked for the prestige (like Radio City Music Hall in NYC). Where does he normally play in a city like Sydney?

I wish I'd gone to see him live in like the mid aughts. that would have been the optimal time price/venue-quality balance period here

£4 first time I saw him. £70 now. Going by inflation should be around £12.50. :)

http://edinburghgigarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/nickcoasters85-1.jpg

i just checked and for the skeleton tree tour in 2017 he two nights at the international convention centre theatre (capacity 2500) and for the push the sky away tour in 2013 he played three nights at the sydney opera house concert hall (capacity approx. 2500) and one night at the enmore theatre (capacity 2500). he probably could have played a bigger venue in sydney in 2017 considering everywhere else in the country he was playing large arenas/amphitheatres, and i expect he will next time. he's also played a lot of solo tours in australia over the past decade, typically playing multiple dates at medium-sized theatres.

i saw him at the Warfield SF on the Dig Lazarus Dig tour. Fucking killer.

also saw him in 1997 at the Forum in Melbourne (Boatmans Call tour). Which was ~the best~ bc i was super early & got pole position front of stage & Nick randomly wandered out on stage before curtains AND FUCKING SAID HI TO ME

<3

listening to AB/DLD for the first time *ever*, uh yeah I have some catching up to do

sorry that's AB/LoO

XP to UFO - oh right, I thought the ICC theatre in Sydney 2017 was bigger, sorry! it's a weird room - very steep seating

my favourite NC gigs were boatman's call tour and abbatoir blues tour - great versions of the band both times, strong new album, they were fiery performances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCwMPHYg7AU

probably won't vote for it but i do want to highlight this push the sky away outtake "animal x" which is build around this weird processed violin loop

The first (and thus far only) time I ever saw Nick Cave was at the Mann Center in Philly, an outdoors amphitheater that seats 13,000 which includes the lawn. They definitely had the lawn open though I have no idea if it sold out. Still a decent amount of people for a "cult" act.

when?

Where does he normally play in a city like Sydney?

Aside from all the accounts of 2500-sized venues, the one marker on his new project of Playing Big Venues (and not bothering to hit a city otherwise) was doing one of the first shows at a new convention centre with a 9,000 capacity in Jan 2017.

(The city's only downtown arena (cap 13,000), which was publicly owned, was torn down in order to drive usage 200m away to the new no-external-access venue owned by a multinational consortium of facilities management companies. So fuck that sellout prick!)

His No More Shall We-era "solo" (four-piece) shows, noted above, were at the extremely fancy 1920s-built State Theatre, cap 2000.

My times seeing the Bad Seeds in Sydney were at outdoor festivals: the BDO in Jan 1993, playing in the blazing summer sun to ...5,000? 20,000? My fellow goth teen schoolfriends and I were down the front, not turning around, and dashing off to see Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy spray angle grinder sparks over a few hundred ppl afterward. The band were on fire, but we rolleyed at Nick's tailored suits in the heat, and wondered if one could last the whole tour given his ritualistic knee-drop move every second song; and at Homebake Dec 2003, headlining at night to nearly the entire festival attendance of... 10k? 20k? The band were visibly even more on fire, but the mix was so bad that a couple hundred of us down the front were holding hands over our ears through each song, then screaming in unison through the gap between songs "TURN... THE BASS... DOWN!!!," to no avail. Nick was presumably singing, but it was impossible to tell. Gallon Drunk bloke in the lineup iirc.

xpost: the ICC is the 9,000 seater but aiui has different seating configurations

I saw Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe at the State Theater, that place was gorgeous, as I remember it.

First time I saw Cave was at Lollapalooza here, which would have been c. ... Let Love In? 1994? Super memorable. He went on either right before or right after L7 on that bill, I think.

xp i wasn't sure at first but read something that indicated it was the 2500 one? makes more sense if i got mixed up though

the BDO in Jan 1993

at the Sydney instalment - if memory serves (which tbh it doesn't always these days) - sonic youth encored with a knees up version of 'I wanna be yr dog', where they were joined by nick cave, blixa (I think?), steve turner and mark arm, and iggy pop

I remember thinking it was cool and kind of gross at the same time, and I guess I still feel that way now

I saw Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe at the State Theater

I was at that one! it's a lovely place to see shows, but doesn't seem to be booking anything interesting these days

the NC boatman's call show I mentioned earlier was there, and not long after he did a weird solo show there with warren ellis, Jim white and Susan Stengar on bass - it was pretty good, probably a subtler proposition than some of those "grinderman blasts the bad seeds" shows of 10 years ago

Saw 2 nights of The Boatman's Call tour here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Hall_(Warsaw)
Maybe my favourite, absolutely my most memorable NC gigs - first night was madness, audience going crazy any time the tempo picked up; second night the venue got in a ton of extra security goons to force people back to their seats (which were reputedly designed to keep people upright and awake during communist speeches) & just STOP THE FUN. You could see Cave getting more and more frustrated with a room that felt dead. Late on - maybe as late as The Mercy Seat - he said something like "I don't know what's going on here, but I do know there are more of you than there are of them" and it just exploded, everyone up, charging forward and overwhelming the goons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf_zVzvYWuw

the live versions of "jubilee street" really are phenomenal

I remember a lot of converts from the Lollapalooza tour, that seemed to be the first bump in his reputation in the US. I know he brings it regardless, but I can’t imagine seeing him on an outdoor stage or even an arena. The music is so suited to a theater size stage and crowd. I suppose I’d just find the music better in certain ventures. (I saw a Siouxsie outside gig and that was just wrong)

I queued up for hours to see him at Montreux Jazz Festival a few years ago, so that I could get to the front. The hall wasn't massive but wasn't exactly small either. If you're anywhere close to the stage it doesn't matter whether you're in a theatre or an arena.

When I saw him touring "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!" I took a friend who had not only never heard Nick Cave, but had never heard *of* Nick Cave. He still talks about that show to this day.

I remember a lot of converts from the Lollapalooza tour, that seemed to be the first bump in his reputation in the US. I know he brings it regardless, but I can’t imagine seeing him on an outdoor stage or even an arena

ah yes, I remember sitting in traffic for 3-4 hours and missing his set, which was the one thing I really wanted to see that year. It was an outdoor venue (some former air base iirc which didn't usually have large events, hence the traffic problems) and he was on in the middle of the afternoon or early evening, but it was still light out. I think it was the time slot Ministry had in '92.

are any of the many bad seeds live releases particularly worth listening to? they've always seemed like they're better live than on record, never seeming to quite capture their live intensity on record until abattoir blues/the lyre of orpheus, which was mostly live-in-studio.