Nick Cave celebrates working with Warren Ellis in an epic Opera House concert

There was an epic feeling around the Opera House concert hall when Nick Cave and Warren Ellis shared the bill to celebrate almost 30 years of groundbreaking collaboration.

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis performing at Sydney Opera House in their Carnage tour. Picture: Daniel Boud

• One-off show from a one-off Indie diva
• Fervour as Nick Cave reaches out
• Head and shoulders above the rest
• A father’s last words

There was an epic feeling around the Opera House concert hall when Nick Cave and his multiskilled sidekick, arranger and entertainer Warren Ellis shared the bill for a tour to celebrate almost 30 years of groundbreaking collaboration.

Clocking in at nearly three hours without a break and featuring more than 20 songs from eight of the 30-plus albums they have made together, the faithful flocked to Bennelong Point to hear the $150 million newly improved acoustics get a majestic workout in a set list drawing mainly on his latest recording Carnage and the equally stunning 2019 double album Ghosteen.

It was a show that encompassed grief – Cave has lost two sons, Arthur in 2015 and Jethro earlier this year – joy, love gone well or gone wrong, anger at Trump, salvation and redemption with the occasional sea monster and murder ballad mixed in.

Nick Cave reaching out at Sydney Opera House. Pictures: Daniel Boud

Dapper, lanky and charismatic, Cave stalked the stage, reaching out the occasional hand to an audience member, accepting a bunch of flowers, reading lyrics off a music stand and discarding the pages, even the microphone at one stage, as he loped back to the Steinway grand. His energy belies his 65 years, while Ellis, sitting for the most part at the side of the stage with a synthesiser keyboard on his lap, drew laughs with his extravagant arm gestures, lying almost supine in his chair as he played one of his visceral violin solos.

There was a lot of banter between the two of them, as well as with the audience, with Cave displaying a sardonic humour. Introducing his cover of T Rex’s Marc Boland’s Cosmic Dancer – “he wrote the best stuff” – Cave said: “This is a joyful f---king song so make the most of it – it’s all downhill from here!”

For the astonishing Hand of God from the Carnage album Cave was skipping around stage like a teenager, not showing any of his 65 years. A master at working his audience, he shook hands with front rowers and was hoisted on to the back of a seat in the second row, held up by audience members, in what seemed an evangelical moment.

Cave and chorus generated a gospel feel some of the time.

The gospel feel was augmented by the trio of backing vocalists Wendi Rose, Janet Rasmus and T Jae Cole, while Ellis’s synth assumed a church organ-like grandeur, aided by bassist Colin Greenwood doubling on keyboards, while Larry Mullins moved from drums to timpani to tablas.

At times like this you sensed the audience would follow Cave to the end of the earth. It happened again with the closing yearning chorus of Ghosteen Speaks – “I think they’ve gathered here for me/I am within you, you are within me/I am beside you, you are beside me”. We all joined in its chorus, arms raised to heaven, behind Cave’s half spoken, half sung poem and refrain.

After the main set the band returned for a 45 minute procession of favourites ancient and modern, including a jaw-dropping performance of Jubilee Street off the Push The Sky Away album and Rasmus firing off Cave in the rollicking murder ballad Henry Lee.

Even with the hall emptying while punters rushed to catch buses, trains or ferries Cave returned yet again for the all-embracing perennial favourite, Into My Arms.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

• WHERE Sydney Opera House

• WHEN December 16, 2022