The intimate setting and tranquillity of The Playhouse before Nick Cave’s arrival didn’t exactly feel like 3,000 people are at a concert. Within the confines of theatre it has the ambience of a Phantom of the Opera play – probably because Nick Cave has his eerie and gothic comparisons to the main character, Erik, of the opera.
Nick Cave gives his fans what they want: offering a continuation of his beautiful yet mysterious work with the Bad Seeds, while producing a semi-fictional movie and releasing a book of tour diaries written on aeroplane sick bags aptly named The Sick Bag Song.
Tonight is no different. No Bad Seeds seems like a bit of a downer, which is why Cave had to draft guitarist and similarly multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis in to accompany him on this special solo tour. Cave played a set predominately dedicated to Bad Seeds material, throwing in the odd rarity and squeezing in a spine-chilling cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’, while performing a second encore to keeping the Edinburgh audience who were in the process of a standing ovation on their toes.
For the two hours that the 57-year-old graced us with his presence on The Playhouse stage, and not one moment was any kind of a let down. His romanticism induced set with captivating full-band and solo piano efforts had the crowd in his thrall for the entire duration. It’s as if 3,000 people fell in love with Nick Cave all over again, purely for a solo reason this time around.
Freelance and student journalist currently educated at Edinburgh Napier University.
