Even when he’s not surrounded by his Bad Seeds bandmates or standing over the audience in the front of the stage and touching their hands, Nick Cave on his own still manages to be a compelling and magnetic performer. That was the case of his Saturday show at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, where, outside of him employing a bass player, the Australian music icon performed by himself for two hours behind a piano. In that setting, Cave’s somber and uplifting music took on an even more raw and vulnerable guise, with the constants being his distinctive baritone singing and the emotional tumult of his lyrics.
The recent stop Big Apple tour stop for Cave—who played at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre the night before and is performing again at the Beacon Sunday—coincided with the recent paperback publication of his 2022 memoir, Faith, Hope and Carnage (co-written with the journalist Seán O’Hagan); he and Hagan also participated in a discussion about the book at 92NY this past Thursday. That work and the solo shows provided the perfect occasion to revisit and appreciate Cave’s long career as a documentarian of the human condition where spirituality, violence and love collide amid a backdrop of post-punk, Gothic rock and the American blues.
From the moment he and Radiohead bassist Collin Greenwood hit the stage and performed the lovely “Girl in Amber,” one immediately knew this show was going to be special. The stripped-down, mostly vocals-and-piano-only approach to the normally electric Bad Seeds songs further highlighted Cave’s turbulent and yearning lyrics but not did not diminish the music’s emotional intensity—especially on “I Need You,” “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry,” and “Jubilee Street.” At times, the show felt more like a religious revival gathering than a rock concert, as some of the performances took on a hymnal tone like on the Bad Seeds’ classic “Into Your Arms.” In addition to playing material from his Bad Seeds and Grinderman catalog and his collaborations with Warren Ellis, Cave unveiled a new song, the gorgeous and hopeful “To Be Found,” during this solo tour.
Amid the somberness of the serious of the show’s music, Cave was in very good and chipper spirits—even humorous—through his banter with the audience between numbers: whether it was referencing Miley Cyrus or dedicating a song to a fan named Pudding only because his wife requested it. And although his show was virtually an acoustic piano affair, Cave managed to wrangle some enthusiastic participation from those sitting in the Beacon’s balcony for the appropriately titled song “Balcony Man.”
But regardless of whether the setting is electric or acoustic, Cave still cuts an imposing stage presence; in the case of this Beacon Theatre performance, his warmer and intimate side emerges out of the maelstrom that feels quite cathartic as a result.
Setlist
Girl in Amber
Higgs Boson Blues
Jesus of the Moon
Galleon Ship
To Be Found
O Children
I Need You
Waiting for You
Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry
Balcony Man
Carnage
The Mercy Seat
Black Hair
(Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?
The Weeping Song
Into My Arms
Jubilee Street
Push the Sky Away
Encore
Idiot Prayer
Love Letter
Shivers
Palaces of Montezuma
Brompton Oratory
The Ship Song
People Ain’t No Good
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