Review: Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ stripped-back, triumphant Adelaide Festival Theatre show

The legendary Nick Cave plays his second Adelaide show on tonight – so what was the first one like? Read our review.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis play the Adelaide Festival Theatre. Picture: Nathan Davies

A rock show, a church service, a gothic cabaret, Nick Cave and long-time collaborator Warren Ellis’s Festival Theatre gig was a triumph on every level.

Working through a two-hour-plus setlist made up of Carnage and Bad Seeds songs – some favourites, some deep cuts, even a few requests from the crowd – Cave seemed genuinely thrilled to be back on stage in Australia.

“I honestly can’t tell you how happy I am to back here in this country,” the kid from Warracknabeal told the adoring audience.

It was a stripped-back production. Three backing singers resplendent in green sequins and, according to Cave, looking “f … ing gorgeous”, a bass player, a drummer and, of course, Ellis.

The bearded wizard took a chair in the corner of the stage, spending most of the show coaxing eerie sounds from a small keyboard, occasionally busting out his violin and, once, picking up a flute.

He also spent a fair bit of time spitting into a metal bucket.

“I think he caught something,” Cave quipped. “I tried to get him to eat but he refused. Said he couldn’t taste anything.”

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis play the Adelaide Festival Theatre on Tuesday. Picture: Nathan Davies

The banter between Cave and Ellis, good mates as well as musical collaborators, added a lightness to a show where the music, at times, got very heavy indeed.

When Cave, sitting at the grand piano, whispered “just breathe, just breathe, just breathe” into the microphone at the end of I Need You, the audience felt every bit of the hopelessness and longing embedded in that song.

Then when – in full southern gothic preacher mode – he yelled, “I’ll shoot you in the f … ing face if you think of coming around here” during White Elephant, you believed it was a distinct possibility.

Cave’s cover of T-Rex’s Cosmic Dancer was sublime, so good it’s hard to believe Marc Bolan didn’t write it just for him, while Carnage track Hand of God took the wild church metaphor to a whole new level, the backing singers channelling a gospel choir as Ellis yelled like a man possessed and Cave delivered from the pulpit. It was a highlight.

Balcony Man, with some fun interaction for those seated up high, closed the main set.

“Look, you might think this is silly,” Cave said after asking the crowd to shriek on cue every time he sang the word “balcony”.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis play the Adelaide Festival Theatre on Tuesday. Picture: Nathan Davies

“But they thought this was a good idea in London. They thought this was cool in London.”

The encore, at eight songs long – perhaps better described as part two – had a few treats for the old-school fans, featuring a singalong version of Into My Arms, a Murder Ballad (Henry Lee) and the sublime Weeping Song from 1990s The Good Son.

For the man seated next to me it was the first time seeing Cave play live for 40 years, back when he was the wild, snarling frontman for The Birthday Party. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Most artists start high and crash, but he just keeps going up and up,” he said.

It was hard to disagree.

The show was, at times, poignant and sad – Cave has famously had a tragic few years, losing two sons in separate incidents – but it was more often life-affirming and, at times, very funny. And it was never not thoroughly wonderful and entertaining.

Tickets are still available for Cave’s second Adelaide Festival Theatre show on Wednesday.

SET LIST

Spinning Song

Bright Horses

Night Raid

Carnage

White Elephant

Ghosteen

Lavender Fields

Waiting for You

I Need You

Cosmic Dancer

Breathless

Hand of God

Shattered Ground

Galleon Ship

Leviathan

Balcony Man

Encore:

Hollywood

Henry Lee

Into My Arms

Wide Lovely Eyes

Jubilee Street

The Weeping Song

Albuquerque

Ghosteen Speaks