Booked tickets to see The Cosmic Psychos in Torquay on Friday. It’s my new favourite venue.
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Thanks to Tixel, I got tickets to Mid Youth Crisis shows this week, and next.
Super excited.
I have a 6am flight to Dubai the day after though…not so excited about
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For tonight’s concert- Hoodoo Gurus and MSO at the Bowl.
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Going tonight thanks tixel
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Go all the way through the night and collapse on the plane.
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Moving set under a full moon, plenty of Wild God (some great choral lines in those songs), lovely tribute to Anita Lane, strong support from Warren Ellis and still about 100 more classics they might have played.
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Meanwhile at Cosmic Psychos they were swinging from the rafters. Security were busy, I haven’t seen a crowd slam like that for a long time
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CMAT anyone?
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MUSIC
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ★★★★★
Alexandra Gardens, January 30
Across his decades-long career, Nick Cave’s work has always courted darkness: his lyrics reverberate with images of biblical violence, with the ache of loneliness and grief, with the kind of love that goes hand in hand with death. Yet equally, he is attuned to beauty and salvation; to the distant, longed-for possibility of redemption. It is in the tension between these two impulses, never quite reconciled, that the strength of his artistry lies.
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds at Alexandra Gardens on Friday.Richard Clifford
This artistry was on full display at Melbourne’s Alexandra Gardens, where an electrifying 2½-hour set somehow doesn’t seem long enough. It’s been nine years since Cave last toured with the full complement of the Bad Seeds, and the band seems determined to make up for lost time. Every person on stage comes to the performance with absolute conviction: from Warren Ellis working his unruly magic with the violin, to the gorgeous textures of the gospel-inflected backing choir, and the magnetic, visceral energy of Cave himself.
“It seems like we’ve been on a great odyssey across this country to get to Melbourne,” he says, to roars of approval. This is a show for the home crowd.
The set deftly balances work from the band’s 2024 album, Wild God, with cherry-picked tracks from its extensive back catalogue. An early highlight is a searching performance of O Children from the 2004 album, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, while Cave’s darker impulses are on full display in the seductively menacing groove of Red Right Hand and the apocalyptic bombast of The Mercy Seat.
While the show contains its moments of pain, rage and despair, these days, perhaps joy is Cave’s primary register. It’s there in the naïve lyrics of Frogs, in his open-hearted tribute to former bandmate and collaborator Anita Lane in O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is), and most defiantly in Joy, in which Cave conjures up a ghostly child visitor with a message of hope amid the tragedy of the everyday: “We’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.”
A generous, six-song encore showcases some of the band’s best work: from an elemental rendition of The Weeping Song to a sensitive cover of Young Charlatans’ Shiver (perhaps the world’s most accomplished love song ever to have been written by a 16-year-old). A luminous performance of Into My Arms brings the evening to a close: tender, plainspoken, the darkness tempered always by light.
Reviewed by Nadia Bailey
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Yep. Wednesday night. Was great. Saw her last Jan at Day On Green and loved the energy. So happy she returned so quickly
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If I could pick one musician to see live it would be Cave. Never seen him, been living in Japan for over two decades and don’t think he’s toured here since the 90s.
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I first saw him in 1978 with The Boys Next Door and have been fortunate enough to see him on several occasions since then. He has never disappointed. I hope you get the chance.
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I recently had a t-shirt printed up with this image on the front and have received a few admiring glances while wearing it.
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Very cool!
Well maybe 40 but I do really like Wild God. It is not that melodic, the tempo is low, the themes are a little repetitive, but the power whipped up as the songs climax is particularly good live. Take Conversion from about 2.20.
Was well received, people still talking about it, stadium was good for the event
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I guess this is the last time I’ll see Mid Youth Crisis. Twice in a week filled my nostalgic boots.
Loved the last couple of gigs, but hard to believe a band this good will never play again after this tour. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
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Caught Geese yesterday at Laneway festival.
Remarkable band. Hard to get fully into recorded, sounds a little awkward. But when you get them live.
Wow. What a sound.
Band ill def catch again if they come around Oz for another tour.
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Apropos of nothing much at all, guitar maestro Leo Kottke once described his singing voice as being like geese farts on a muggy day.
Guns N’ Roses headlining the Adelaide 500 in November as part of their Australian tour.
Personally I haven’t got much on the horizon at this stage but do have Pendulum next month which I’m looking forward too