Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
Gold Coast Convention Centre
10.11.2022
It’s a Saturday night on the Gold Coast, and the Convention Centre is hosting Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Yes, rock n roll magic can appear in the most unlikely places.
Drummer Larry Mullins leads the charge by striding on stage at 8.45pm followed by bassist, Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood, three backing singers in gold robes, the multi-instrumentalist Ellis and finally Cave himself.
The show begins with ‘Spinning Song’ and the Vegas of the original lyric morphs into the Gold Coast. Cave shares his uncertainty about the venue. There’s a combustion that’s about to happen and, as the band works its way through ‘Bright Horses’, ‘Night Raid’ and ‘Carnage’, it does.
When the players tear into ‘White Elephant’, Cave prowls the stage like a panther. There’s a spring in his step. His physical agility is matched by his unflinching spitting of the lyric: possibly inspired by George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant and the protests around the death of George Floyd.
The fourth wall, if it ever existed tonight, is broken early. Stragglers to their seat catch Cave’s eye and he questions their ‘fucking timing’. Soon he’s drowning in calls of ‘I love you Nick’ and he returns the favour. Ellis – swapping from violin to flute and beyond – milks every moment, and the room now feels like a barroom.
There’s yelling from the stalls, there’s gags on stage. Cave and Co work their way through a set largely stocked with highlights from the recent Ghosteen and Carnage albums as they build on the head of steam.
Cave’s cover of Marc Bolans’s ‘Cosmic Dancer’ is otherworldly. ‘Hand Of God’ sees Cave climb from the stage and immerse himself on the crowded floor before finally walking ten rows in and standing on an empty seat. The crowd chants ‘hand of God/hand of God’ with him. When it’s seemingly over, and marooned on the floor, he slowly starts the chant again … almost distracting the fans by singing so he can finally get back on the stage.
By the time ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Balcony Man’ (renamed ‘Bleacher Man’ tonight in honour of the seating plan) rolls around, the gig is a triumph and feels like it’s coming to a natural conclusion.
But that’s when the aforementioned magic really happens as Cave decides he wants to keep going.
As if they’re on an automatic timer and we’ve hit curfew time, the house lights come on as the clock strikes 11pm: but Nick still has petrol in the tank. Conjuring up everyone from Jesus to Elvis with his shaman shtick, it’s Cave’s own talent, grief and truth that burns brightest tonight.
The encore starts with ‘Hollywood’, there’s a continual conversation with the audience as he settles on ‘Henry Lee’ next. ‘The Ship Song’ is taught to the band on the fly.
The band left. The band returned. We’re now five minutes shy of three hours as Cave closes with a beautiful reading of ‘Into My Arms’. Nothing short of transcendent, when the house finally lights go up, people mill in their seats trying to put into words the wonder they’ve laid witness to.
Almost twenty four hours later I’m banging words into this computer trying to convey what I saw. The show was remarkable. Spiritually uplifting. Cave brought every iota of showbiz he’s ever learned to the table: and somehow the concert itself was bigger than that.
It was a rare communion between artist and audience where the ‘magic’ happened. I’ve probably seen a thousand gigs, this is in the top five.
Bravo Nick and Warren … long may you bloody run.
Sean Sennett
Photo: Ian Laidlaw
