Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live!

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Riviera, Chicago
Monday, September 29, 2008

The script goes: we see a veteran act and report back how whoever it is may have lost a step but is much more seasoned. Monday night, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds slipped out of our hold and jammed a finger in our eye as they ran away.

The 51-year-old Cave, given the narcotics abuse and nearly 30 years of visceral performances, should be in tatters. Maybe he actually is, but by paring the setlist to a brisk 90 minutes he and band were as ferocious at the finish as they were at the onset. With an admitted weakness for Johnny Cash and American gothic, they could easily morph into a robust, Rick Rubin ensemble (and nearly did on Monday’s “Mercy Seat,” once covered by Cash), tour with Neil Diamond, and ride semi-dignified into the sunset.

For that to happen, Cave will need to quit dressing like the devil. Slicked-back shoulder-length hair, half-moon mustache, and button-down shirt hanging open beneath his sternum, he ever looked his songs’ characters — torn by redemption, damnation, broken hearts, and bloodlust. When he could be seen through the thickets of a sold-out Riviera, he wasn’t in one place for long, dizzying The Bad Seeds who were themselves busy fostering brimstone chaos (“Tupelo”), gospel stillbirth (“Get Ready For Love”), cabaret pop (“Jesus Of The Moon”), and glitched-out funk (“We Call Upon The Author”).

Exorcising the last decade’s piano-based romanticism (except the mocking “God Is In The House”) for a near-even split between this summer’s Dig, Lazarus, Dig! (Anti) and the best-of, the set seemed fated to keep beer lines long. But because Lazarus steals the strut from last year’s Grinderman side-project, there was no such vacillation. Cave packed as much swagger into the “everybody’s a-comin’ around to my place” from “Midnight Man” as punctuated spit for the “bad motherfucker called Stagger Lee.”

Cave was short on banter (he had visited a throat specialist in Denver, if that had anything to do with it), and Monday’s gig was a half-hour shorter than Sunday’s in the same venue. If such shortcuts continue to yield this explosiveness, however, our maturity clichés will have to stay in the drawer a little longer.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly