A week and a day ago, I went up to Columbus to see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in concert at the Palace Theater. Nick’s always been on my bucket list for artists to see, but originally the math of (ticket price + 100 miles away) didn’t work for me. However, my friend Ken’s friend Suzanne wound up with a couple of extra seats two days before the concert, and was willing to part with them at a discounted price… AND she’d drive us to Columbus and back too. Sold!

In hindsight, I should’ve been willing to pay full freight. The concert was one of the best I’ve ever seen!

Our seats were on the main floor but pretty far back. However, Ken knew that Nick invites the audience to get closer. Sure enough, after the first song, he said “You feel so far away” and that was our cue to race down to form our own “standing room” in the aisles right by the stage. When Nick came stage left, he was about eight feet away from me.

Here’s the one and only photo I took of Nick, who looks like a cross between Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Munster:

I didn’t take any more shots because I wanted to be fully present for the show, and luxuriate in it.

His voice is ominous. His songs are dark and brooding. The lyrics can be a downer. But the concert felt like going to church. The dude is 67 and runs around the stage like a manic faith healer… which is kinda what he is.

He even came out into the audience a couple of times, walking around on the chairs like Roberto Benigni at the ’99 Oscars.

HIs band is fantastic (the bass player Colin Greenwood also plays in a band called Radiohead… perhaps you’ve heard of them?). He has four backing vocalists straight out of a gospel church choir. And they ripped it up for 22 amazing songs.

Nick Cave isn’t just a fantastic performer, though. He’s also a philosopher of sorts, and deeply spiritual. He has a blog called The Red Hand Files. (Side note: if you’ve watched the show “Peaky Blinders” they used Nick’s song “Red Right Hand” for the opening titles.) In the blog, he answers questions from fans. Check out this excerpt from five years ago, when he responded to a question “A Prayer to who?”

A prayer provides us with a moment in time where we can contemplate the things that are important to us, and this watchful application of our attention can manifest these essential needs. The act of prayer asks of us something and by doing so delivers much in return — it asks us to present ourselves to the unknown as we are, devoid of pretence and affectation, and to contemplate exactly what it is we love or cherish. Through this conversation with our inner self we confront the nature of our own existence.

The full post is here.

And here’s an excerpt from a very recent post. The question was:

When you say, “I love you, too,” back to fans at concerts, what do you mean by that? How can you love a total stranger?

LEAH, YPSILANTI, MICHIGAN, USA

His response is beautiful… and helps me wrap my head around why I love live music so much:

Leah, when I tell the audience that I love them, the sentiment is entirely true. I feel an emotional transaction with the crowd that is powerful and profoundly intimate. I stand before you all – strangers – witnessing you both individually and collectively, and sense an unbounded love. This love is true. It is not symbolic, metaphorical, or platitudinous. I see before me a group of human beings, precarious and vulnerable, granted a brief time on this earth, each filled with a shocking potential for beauty and terror, good and evil, and with the extraordinary capacity to give and receive love. At that moment, love is the appropriate response. 

Amen, Brother Nick! Love you too!

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My friend Ken took some photos and shot some video at the show… this brief clip of “Jubilee Street” gives you a bit more of the feel for how intense Nick can be.

And here’s some crowd-shot footage of “Conversion” on the current tour… “You’re beautiful!”

And some professional footage of “Jubilee Street” from a few years back.