Fiona
Tom Years
samuelfrankly
Henny
Nick Cave’s musical career spans over 35 years. He is well known for his narrative songwriting and magical story telling techniques featuring dark, moody, black lyrics with religious undercurrents.
Central to most of his lyrical stories is the notion of love surrounding some form of drama in terms of loss, murder or death. He has always aimed to carve his own niche in music by reflecting his personality, vision and worldviews.
When triple j announced a series of shows, honouring the legendary genius that is Nick Cave, I was somewhat concerned with some of the line up featuring artists such as hip hop act Urthboy from the Herd, Jake Stone from Bluejuice and electro popster Muscles.
At the Sydney, Enmore Theatre show fans came out in their droves. The range in audience members was vast and fascinating with mature fans from the early Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party days to the youth and newly found fans of the latest band Grinderman.
Performing at these tribute shows was a long tread of Nick Cave admirers including Adalita from Magic Dirt, Alex Burnett from Sparkadia, Bertie Blackman, Dan Sultan, Jake Stone from Bluejuice, Johnny Mackay from Children Collide, Kram from Spiderbait, Lisa Mitchell, Muscles, Urthboy from The Herd, Abbe May, Lanie Lane and a guest appearance from Paul Kelly. Tackling songs from Cave’s entire career, these artists recreated the tunes of Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Grinderman.
The array of musical talent performing on stage certainly was surprising. Some of the best and most creative song interpretations were tracks performed by Jake Stone from Bluejuice and Urthboy from The Herd. ‘The Weeping Song’ were transformed into a pumping reggae tune and the lyrics of ‘O Children’ and ‘Stagger Lee’ were made into a rap.
The first half of the show brought Muscles and Bertie Blackman together to sing an interesting duet of the track ‘Do You Love Me?’. Muscles on keyboard then performed a heart felt solo of ‘I Let Love In’. This performance showed a different perspective of the electro pop artist able to sing a ballad with real light and shade in his voice and vocal range.
Perth rocker Abbe May leapt straight into the track ‘Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)’. To my disappointment she butchered the vocals with her weak, soft voice only slightly redeeming some respect with her frantic, raw and gutsy guitar playing.
Sparkadia frontman Alex Burnett covered the classic Rowland S. Howard song ‘Shivers’ and although not a Cave catalog original, he did cover this song in his first band Boys Next Door. Burnett was later joined by rockabilly Lanie Lane to perform the Cave/Minogue duet ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’. Both songs were well received by the fanatical crowd.
The stand out performance of the night was definitely the sweet, delicate voice of Lisa Mitchell who sang an acoustically stripped back version of ‘The Ship Song’. Her performance was absolutely amazing leaving the crowd in a state of awe. She also sang the Cave favourite ‘Into My Arms’ to perfection while slow dancing with Jake Stone from Bluejuice giving the song a loving and romantic feel.
In the second half of the show Adalita from Magic Dirt made her appearance singing the song and title of the tribute shows ‘Straight To You’. She then joined special guest Paul Kelly to sing backing vocals to ‘Nobody’s Baby Now’.
Kram from Spiderbait was behind the drum kit for most of the night. He came to the front of stage towards the end of the set to play a solo acoustic version of ‘Henry Lee’. He then sang ‘There is a Kingdom’ in a trio with Dan Sultan and Lisa Mitchell.
Bertie Blackman covered the challenging and confronting song ‘The Mercy Seat’ and her powerful, deep, gravelly voice certainly proved to be an appropriate match for this heavy, dark and sad Cave tune. To end the night all the tribute artists regrouped on stage to close with a fun, collaborative performance of ‘Get Ready for Love’, lead by Dan Sultan.
It was fascinating to see many different inspired performances from admiring musicians, paying tribute to Nick Cave and his prolific music career. The show proved that Nick Cave’s music, creativity, unique style and captivating narrative stories are loved and cherished by a wide audience and that his songs have the power to influence infinite individual approaches.
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