Nick Cave sombre but sublime as he discovers he's not alone in Vancouver

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      At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Thursday, June 22

      If there’s an overriding theme to this year’s powerful Nick Cave documentary One More Time With Feeling, it’s that the thing that happened has left scars that will never heal.

      There’s no need to get into what that thing is here; if you’re even a casual fan of the 61-year-old singer, actor, author, screenwriter, and brooding genius, then you know exactly what we’re talking about. Basically Cave has been in a challenging spot, namely having to soldier on and creating art after surviving something that no parent should ever have to go through.

      Because of One More Time With Feeling, and last year’s haunting full-length Skeleton Tree, it was hard to feel like the spectre of the thing wasn’t hanging over Thursday’s show. After all, Cave has admitted that these days it’s hard for him to go out for cigarettes or a loaf of bread without feeling like his fellow human beings are keenly aware of his grief.

      Thanks to this reality, it was difficult not to read Cave’s Thursday night triumph in Vancouver as a sombre affair, especially compared to past visits. (Of course it’s just as likely this take on things is completely off-base, seeing as how he’s also stated there that he wants no one’s pity.)

      Still, the raw viciousness of Cave’s 2010 appearance here with Grinderman was largely absent. The fire-and-flaming-brimstone spectacle that was the Bad Seeds at the Vogue three years ago was also largely absent, at least until an encore that was for the ages.

      Instead Vancouver got an often-meditative Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, with the opening number in many ways setting the tone. Clad in one of his trademark tailored suits, the singer strode out and then promptly took a seat on a centre-stage chair for Skeleton Tree’s “Anthrocene”. It was a start that was a dramatic as it was heart-wrenching, the emotion bleeding through the song’s lines “It’s a long way back and I’m begging you please/To come how now, come home now”.

      The chair didn’t last long, Cave taking to his feet for the ghostly follow-up “Jesus Alone”, which was arguably even more devastating thanks to the opening lines “You fell from the sky/Crash landed in a field” and it’s chorus of “With my voice/I am calling you now”.

      From there Vancouver got a career-spanning show that focussed on Skeleton Tree and 2013’s triumphant Push the Sky Away, but not at the expense of chaotic early-career exorcisms like “From Her to Eternity” and “Tupelo”. Both were nothing less than punishing, as were doomsday renditions of “The Mercy Seat” and “Red Right Hand”.

      Visually the show was at times stunning (the black and white footage of Cave’s wife Susie Bick walking on the beaches of Brighton during “Girl in Amber”) and always tasteful, the singer and his Bad Seeds often bathed in soft blue and iris-purple lights.

      If one thing stood out from past visits, it was the way that Cave kept the between-songs banter to a minimum, most of it being an occasional “Thank you”. What remained the same was the singer’s willingness to share the spotlight with violinist/guitarist/keyboardist and wild-maned madman Warren Ellis.

      Forget the idea of Ellis—his main collaborator—being a hired-hand, the two clearly respect each other equals, as do their fans. (On more than one occasion crowd members yelled out “We love you Warren” between songs.)

      When a bouquet of flowers arrived on stage, you can guess which band member Cave delivered it to. It was deserved as Ellis quietly hung in the background for downbeat numbers like “Magneto”, and put on a display of crazy Rasputin-like showmanship for symphonic assaults like “Jubilee Street”.

      Fittingly, the set ended sombrely with the spectral “Skeleton Tree”. After making the crowd work for the encore, Cave and six backing Bad Seeds delivered in grand style.

      Things started with the frontman climbing into the audience for the gothic sing-along “The Weeping Song”, performer and audience projected in towering real-time black-and-white on the stage backdrop.

      Not done there, he started the eternally badass “Stagger Lee” by hauling five audience members onstage to dance, and then opening the floodgates. By mid-song there must have been a 100 or more ecstatic, flailing disciples flanking Cave as he ripped through lines like “I’m a bad motherfucker don’t you know/And I’ll crawl over 50 good pussies just to get one fat boy’s asshole.”

      Double props to the singer for commanding all on-stage to put their phones away, which they obediently complied with, including the Gene Shalit look-alike watching everything through his screen with a spare battery pack attached.

      The night ended as dramatically as it started with the hauntingly downbeat “Push the Sky Away”, Cave standing sweat-soaked in the middle of the audience, the small army on stage sitting in rapt attention. It was nothing less than goddamn rapturous, the singer seemingly recognizing this by thanking everyone for being “fucking fantastic.”

      Cave started the show more or less by himself at centre stage on a chair. He finished it literally surrounded by beaming fans who couldn’t have been more grateful for what he’d just given them.

      The pain of that thing will never go away for good, that made clear by One More Time With Feeling. But Cave's message on this night was as obvious as it was inspirational: no matter how bad things get, it is possible to go on, especially when you're not alone.

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