On a fine early summer’s evening, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds arrive into the suitably ornate surroundings of Dublin Castle and kick into one of the many fine tracks from their excellent recent album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Indeed, the majority of the set is devoted to material from that record, but given that the band sound so fantastic and Cave is in such spellbinding form, nobody’s complaining.
The Bad Seeds really are an awesome musical unit, performing the songs with remarkable flair and providing the ideal sonic backdrop for their charismatic singer. Even the smaller details with which they adorn the tunes – such as the industrial funk rhythm they interpolate into ‘We Call Upon The Author’ – sound brilliant. With the band providing the voodoo grooves, Cave (sporting his now familiar look of shoulder-length hair and pencil moustache), prowls around the stage, banters with the audience and generally essays the role of shamanic frontman to perfection.
There is a smattering of older material throughout, including superb renditions of ‘Red Right Hand’ and ‘Into Your Arms’. For the encore, the band invite Shane McGowan onstage for a decidedly ragged take on ‘Lucy’, before kicking into the brilliant funk-blues of ‘Stagger Lee’. A profanity-riddled death letter, the song’s eerie magnificence is the ideal way to bring the curtain down on a towering performance.