The past few years have been a treat for committed Cave divers. Since the 2013 release of Push the Sky Away, his understated, atmospheric 15th album with the Bad Seeds, Cave has offered up two further self-portraits for fans to immerse themselves in. Last year’s 20,000 Days on Earth was a playful, hit-and-myth biopic starring Cave, Ray Winstone and Kylie. And just before setting out on this solo European jaunt, the 57-year-old published a tour diary, the Sick Bag Song, written on sick bags while floating high above the US.
Cave’s long-standing status as the UK’s favourite brimstone-scented polymath makes it easy to imagine a dark mass of acolytes ready to kowtow to their idol: respectful, reverential, hanging on his every scarecrow gesture. Cave certainly brings his hypnotic spider-walk stagecraft and ringmaster patter – “Here’s a fucking classic piece of mid-period Cave,” he drawls, introducing the rarely played Brompton Oratory – but there’s a nervy, caffeinated crackle in the crowd at odds with the all-seated concert hall setting.
A terrace chant of “WAR-REN! WAR-REN!” rises up to greet multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, one of the Bad Seeds Cave has smuggled into his four-piece backing band. “Do you love me? Like I love you?” cries a reedy female voice, and it’s unclear whether it’s a song request or a genuine question. Cave seems to relish the tension, spasming off his grand-piano stool during the crashing chords of Red Right Hand, and adding some amusingly slapdash xylophone to Up Jumped the Devil.
By the end of Higgs Boson Blues, he has a fan attempting to locate his heartbeat through his black shirt while he hisses in her face. There’s a raucous From Her to Eternity (“This is the first song the Bad Seeds ever did … or so I’m told,” he quips), matched by stripped-back, emotive renditions of I Let Love In and Into My Arms, as well as throat-catching solo piano versions of The Ship Song and The Mercy Seat.
It’s a crammed, seasick setlist, heavy on romantic interludes but never far from an astringent blast of drunk-punk noise. The volatile mixture of catharsis and rising hysteria is everything you would want from a Nick Cave experience, bolstered by a six-song encore, during which he offers to take requests, only to be deafened by the response. “I am in control, not you,” he reminds the fans pressing up to the apron, although by this stage, that point has become essentially moot.
• At Playhouse, Edinburgh (0844 847 1660) 28 April, then touring until 3 May.
