Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ AO Arena, Manchester – 05/11/2024

On a night where a presidential election and the haze of bonfire night are the major talking points both internationally and locally, don’t tell Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds fans that. Manchester’s AO Arena, a brief refuge from politics and fireworks, as Cave delivers his own speeches and tales in this broad church, and backed by the Bad Seeds, a different brand of fireworks are on offer.

Now an 11 piece concern, the Bad Sees are slowly approaching Springsteen levels. Cave, joined by trusted left-tenant Warren Ellis and fellow long-time sentinels, Jim Scalvunous and George Vjestica, with the touring party rounded out by percussionist Larry Mullins (currently of Swans), keyboardist Carly Paradis, backing vocalists, Janet Ramus, T Jae Cole, Miça Townsend and Wendi Rose, and Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass, admirably stepping in for the venerable Martyn P. Casey.

Arenas are a different animal, but over the years the Bad Seeds have harnessed such settings to the point where they have become their natural habitat. Whether it be bastardising the blues through the seam of Your Funeral… My Trial and Henry’s Dream, to the weeping wounds of Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen, this is the milieu where Nick Cave & The Band Seeds are the best version of themselves.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Wild God

And it barely takes the first three notes to ring from Vjestica’s guitar to realise it. Cave, joining his bandmates, as he confidently strides across the stage, suited and booted and not a hair out of place, and through a cracked smile, he launches into a swooping rendition of Frogs.

It’s one of the many Wild God cuts littered throughout tonight’s performance, and both here and on Song of the Lake, Greenwood’s bass chug carries these songs towards new light. He’s one of the many shining beacons throughout this all-star cast of new Seeds, with Wild God’s eponymous track sounding even better live thanks to Ramus, Cole, Townsend and Rose who lift the song to the upper reaches.

Mercurial as ever, it’s Ellis’ turn to make his mark on O Children – a the sole survivor from Abattoir Blues…, the Dirty Three leader’s gadget wrangling shapes the song into something that maintains the Wild God aesthetic. And while that remains strong over the next two-and-half hours, the peak moment arrives away from it with Jubilee Street. Reaching an ear-splitting crescendo, the band proceeds with a blues freak-out that is unmatched not just for the rest of this evening, but across every single live performance on God’s green earth this year.

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The beautifully unvarnished From Her to Eternity remains in the same orbit, delivered at levels previously unseen, while the freight train blues of Tupelo is another old favourite clipped into beautiful new shapes courtesy of this latest guise of the Bad Seeds.

It’s these moments of loud versus quiet, where the real beauty is found. The setlist, seemingly arriving in pairs that creates an ebb and flow indicative of life’s journey. For every flash of a Jubilee Street and From Her to Eternity, there’s the back-to-back tender balladry of Long Dark Night and Cinnamon Horses. The two best moments of Wild God and even more emotionally powerful in a live setting.

There’s more of that, through the deliciously slow Bright Horses and Joy, while the piano-led I Need You is stripped to the bones. Cave, looking straight down the lens as the camera captures every moment of pain this song still brings. It always will.

From here, the band shifts gears, and through the COVID vapour, the doom blues of Carnage has grown better with age. The same could be said of Red Right Hand, too, which gets the required crowd treatment, as Greenwood, Mullins and Vjestica appear to be living their best life performing it. After all it’s the three who combine to give the song a new lease of life. Vjestica, a secret weapon in the Bad Seeds arsenal with his simple, less-is-more approach opening pockets of space for Cave to gloriously exploit.

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And speaking of, Mullins’ marching drum patterns on The Mercy Seat lead the band to produce a cacophony of white noise. Again, there’s a new vitality, and that energy teems into White Elephant where the show is ended emphatically. Cave, leading from the front and possessing the swagger of the greats. The poeticism of Morrison; the conviction of Presley; the exhibitionism of Jagger. It’s right here. All blood and bones from the Balcony Man himself.

While encores will always divide opinion, it’s hard to argue when a band delivers something with as much pomp and vigour as Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry. It’s a song shows should end with, but by now the Bad Seeds are hellbent on outdoing themselves at every turn. Ellis just about does on Weeping Song, but there’s only one person who gets the final say, and Cave leaves one more indelible mark with Into My Arms. A song and a moment where words are just… words.

The service now closed, and so too this brief refuge, for reality is now as humbling as ever. A damaged world now feels like something teetering beyond repair. Humanity, finding yet another way to shoot itself in the foot. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, perhaps Nick Cave & Bad Seeds give one last stirring performance before the world changes forever? How such a force can get back into power really does question whether there is a god at all. Perhaps there are layers and levels, but at aged 67 and possessing the magic and aura that would mirror any immortal, the Wild God is most certainly Nicholas Edward Cave.