Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

Do You Love ME? What a better question to an audience celebrating an holy ceremony? Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live are more than a concert experience, and if your next Nick Cave's concert is not the first, you know what I'm talking about. It's not important how loud or intimate the last Nick's studio album was: the live side of the Men with the Red Right Hand is hypnotic, wild and terrific at the same time. You will jump into the whirlwind of emotions after the first note, and the violin of Warren Ellis more than any other instrument (except for Mr. Cave's voice) will take you on the banks of the river "where the wild roses grove"...and, listen to me: look at your back!

I have never seen NC before last night, but was somewhat familiar with his music and band and enjoyed what I knew, so I was looking forward to the concert. It was a great venue (the Mann, Philadelphia) so almost any show there is awesome. Nick came out with thunderous vocals and music. The first song was a thumping, moody piece, and that gave way to many loud, brash and unmusical songs. There was a lot of noise and all of the band members seemed to be trying real hard, almost to compete with one another rather than play as a unified band. I thought the second song (I don’t know its title) would have been a good closer or penultimate choice rather than putting something so inaccessible in the beginning. In fact, most of the playlist seemed to be out of order without a lot of flow to the show. He does have a few melodic numbers which he executed quite well. And I think the audio was too loud for that venue - when we moved up the hill the acoustics were better. The crowd seemed enthusiastic to applaud to each song but few were dancing to anything (as none seemed really dance-able) which when I see I interpret as people having a great time. Most were just sitting in their seats watching the at times bombastic songs unfold. His set wasn’t particularly long and I didn’t stay to see if he played a 2nd encore (I doubt he did). Many people seemed to be leaving without lingering to find out either. I spoke with one concert-goer who was down in front and she said it was great. I am sure her ears are reminding her today of the decibels.