Nick Cave avec piano, dans a large room, sans Ellis. Phew.

Nick Cave Alone At Alexandra Palace

Idiot Prayer
(Awal Recordings)

Those who know me probably know I handed in my ticket as a card-carrying disciple of the church of St Nick a while back. It wasn’t sudden, more a slow drift as Grinderman sometimes sounded to me like that uncle you hoped wouldn’t come to the wedding trying to prove his dick was still operational and he could still scare the kiddies. 

That of course coincided with Warren Ellis’ ascension to de facto musical director of The Bad Seeds, which mostly seemed to default to Wazza’s violin sawing over everything else on every damn song. For godsake man, shut up – if only occasionally.

Horribly, tragically - but somehow almost triumphantly - the near-perfect gothic horror of the loss of one of his twin sons let him channel himself back into the music (sometimes), rather than playing the character of what 'Nick Cave' was supposed to be. 

And now in this year, where we are the most all together alone, this is the cry in the dark.
And oddly, the light in the dark.

Nick in a big empty space. Just voice and what he’s boasted is the most beautiful piano he’d ever played. It may well be. And thankfully (to me, anyway) Ellis nowhere within earshot. The angst is unadorned. The occasional howl of love, loss, grief, or existential is still present, but somehow more heartfelt - rather than just trying to be heard over the cacophony. He can still slip in a dollop of black humour or in joke - Sad Waters happily copping the denouement from Tom Jones' Green Green Grass Of Home straight-faced.
As ever, God and Jesus make regular appearances - sometimes welcomed with open arms, more often with an arched eyebrow asking "So, what the hell are you doing here? And why now?...".

I’ve closed the curtains, had the strong coffee to sip. From my Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds tour mug - it's black, of course (the mug, not the coffee...). I may have felt a tear well up as Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For? echoed around the The Alexandra Palace and my loungeroom. Even the usual most melodramatic set-piece, The Mercy Seat, is quieter - more resigned than raging against the dying of the light as it can sometimes be. And the one-two punch of Into My Arms and The Ship Song has genuinely left me unable to stand. And reminded me of every girl and woman I played them to. Even the shit ones. I'll ponder later if I can take all this with a glass of serviceable shiraz, and the lights low. 

Right now, I think I needed this record. Perhaps more correctly, we needed this record. And maybe even he did too.