Nick Cave & Patti Smith join forces for major Dublin gig

Christmas comes early with the news that Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are paying a headlining visit to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on Wednesday June 6 with Patti Smith, no stranger to IMMA herself, taking care of special guest duties. Gates open at 5pm.
Along with his huge arsenal of greatest hits, Cave will be showcasing Skeleton Tree, his 16th album, which he was halfway through recording when his teenage son, Arthur, died after falling from a Brighton cliff. At times painfully difficult to listen to, it was accompanied by a documentary, One More Time With Feeling, which equally lays bare the Australian's soul.
In addition to live appearances, Patti Smith has a new book out, Devotion, that explores the nature of creative invention.
Tickets go on sale next Monday priced €69.50.

Our woman Roisin Dwyer travelled to Germany last week to see ol' Nick. Here's her report:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Dusseldorf

Nick Cave’s latest album Skeleton Tree has been touted as one of his finest, borne from the unimaginable grief spawned by the tragic death of his son Arthur in 2015. His ghost looms over this show as it commences with a triptych of material from the longplayer. During opening number Anthrocene he prowls the stage channeling a plethora of dark emotions at once distraught but somehow freed by the sonic malevolence.

And just when we are drawn into this hysterical miasma of ponderous but beautiful pain we are wrenched free as Cave leads the Bad Seeds into a raucous double-whammy of a delightfully potent ‘From Here To Eternity’ and a menacing ‘Tupelo’.

From this point it is a career-spanning celebration of what Cave does best raw and anguished romantic balladry – ‘Into Your Arms’ and ‘The Ship Song’ and explosively anthemic shards of fire and brimstone mined from the darkest corners of hell ‘The Mercy Seat’ and ‘Red Right Hand’.

He is a genius.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds will play Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Ireland in 2018. Tickets on sale 23 October at 9am: https://t.co/9tZ47AEhee pic.twitter.com/nBAXY8pkMI

— Nick Cave & TBS (@nickcave) October 18, 2017