Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Massey Hall in Toronto, March 23, 2013

On Saturday night Rachelle and I went to see Nick Cave perform at Massey Hall in Toronto. I don’t think I have ever seen an artist perform who was more committed to his work than Nick Cave. He is completely and totally invested in what he’s doing, and watching him is seeing a man struck by a kind of lightning–something elemental. Never stooping to charm, he simply commanded the audience. Seductive, intimidating, thrilling and powerful, he was like some sort of incantatory supernova that just kept exploding over and over and over again.

Live, his songs become crazed, feral creatures. Having broken free of their studio imposed straightjackets, every piece he plays becomes bloodthirsty, an unpredictable, ever escalating apocalypse unto itself. Honest to God, his shows are as much of an assault as they are anything else, and you always feel a little bit like you’ve just born witness to a terrible crime.

Bent and crouched low at the edge of the stage, his black-clad arms waving and pointing to the summoned crowd, Cave was a spidery prophet. The stories he imparted all carried danger and urgency, more condemnation than warning. It was primitive, as if shadows of incredible passion and horror were being cast angrily upon the wall, and there was an utterly brilliant, almost supernatural feeling to it all.

Behind him and singing in support of all this was a small choir assembled from grade 5 and 6 students at a public school here in Toronto. There’s really no conceivable way that they could have known anything about Nick Cave or had a clue what they’d gotten themselves in for when they signed up to sing with some pop star at a downtown concert hall, and I could not stop imagining what was going through their heads. It must have been traumatic and nightmare-inducing, like seeing a train, gloriously in flames, skidding off the tracks and shuddering toward you at a million miles an hour, while you, pitifully, tried to pedal away on your bicycle.

Astonishing, just astonishing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdau-45Rpxc

(Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performing Stagger Lee in Montreal March 22, 2013)

staggerlee

(My brief 10-second video of him performing the same song in Toronto the next night. Note the bad seats.)