That book – the recently published Nina Simone’s Gum – charts Ellis’s own mini-descent into obsession, in which a piece of chewing gum Simone discarded in 1999 becomes a sacred object. Later, he will humorously tick off an autograph-hunter: “I’m not signing Warren Ellis’s book! I draw the line!” Cave is quick to point out what a “legend” Ellis is.
The song breaks down into swooping electronics and atonal sounds: Ellis and Johnny Hostile voicing the terrible loss, as though the planet were leaning over in slo-mo.Īlthough the reliance on oscillations can become repetitive, more often than not Ellis’s electronic spirit world rebounds, bell-like, around the concert hall’s generous acoustics. On Hollywood, a youngster “climbs into the sun” before his time. The vocalists reassure him: “There is a kingdom in the sky.” Is that really meant to comfort? In Cave’s mythos, that very same sky eats children. On Lavender Fields, Cave is travelling “appallingly alone”. Perhaps the merch stall should consider selling empty packets of Indian spices. Naturally, she comes back empty-handed, because “everybody’s losing someone”. Hollywood climaxes in the folk tale of the bereaved mother Kisa, instructed by Buddha to take a mustard seed from every household in the village that has suffered no loss. Cave imagines “my baby” coming back to him on the 5.30 train – a nod to the locomotive as a storied musical motif, and an example of Ghosteen’s defiant, petulant commitment to magical thinking.Īll the kicks to the solar plexus are here. It is a recurrent theme of Ghosteen, and tonight’s set: that the material world is not the be-all and end-all, and the loved ones we have lost persist. Within moments, we’re straight into the metaphysics of sorrow: Bright Horses, a Ghosteen high point in which Cave wrestles with his own dazzling imagery, deciding that mundane reality is insufficient to describe all that exists. Within moments, we’re straight into the metaphysics of sorrow “It’s a big hit,” jokes Cave as he introduces another keening track, to be met with hushed silence rather than the howls that often greet Cave’s swaggering, blood-spattered back catalogue. Cave’s solo spoken-word tour of 2019 aside, this is the first opportunity audiences have had to hear all these songs live. The Bad Seeds were supposed to tour Ghosteen Covid intervened. It’s an assault course for the innards in which the division between the real and the unreal dissolves and everything left is absurd – not least the kitsch Ghosteen tea towels available at the merch stall.
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Born from the maelstrom of grief and existential questioning resulting from the death of Cave’s teenage son Arthur in 2015, Ghosteen is not really a record.
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To the rear is multi-instrumentalist Frenchman Johnny Hostile three backing vocalists – T Jae Cole, Janet Rasmus and Wendi Rose – add oceanic sighs and celestial wallop to the set.īut why are there no seatbelts? This ride is not for the faint-hearted. The two are all joints and sinew, as though consumed by the demands of the hungry-ghost music of their collaborations. Ellis is the medieval-looking figure seated on his right on electronics, violin and flute, also suited and booted as though to disguise his real form. Cave is both suave and insectoid in a dark suit. Tonight, the optics suggest business as usual for an artist into his fourth decade of performing. Masks, it turns out, make excellent and discreet handkerchiefs. I s it normal to approach a concert by a much-loved artist with as much dread as anticipation? Nick Cave and his close collaborator Warren Ellis are touring songs drawn from Carnage – the haunting and visceral album the two made during lockdown – and from 2019’s Ghosteen, a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds record like no other.