Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Nick Cave, the once and future king

Despite my financial troubles and career identity crisis, one part of my life is now complete: I have seen Nick Cave live. Now in his fifties (older than my father), Cave is better than ever. The tracks from his latest album, including the epic title track "Dig Lazarus Dig," were performed at high energy by Cave and the Bad Seeds at the 9:30 Club on Monday. The opening band, whose name I didn't catch, was decent, a melodic and 60s garage rock-influenced version of Cave's early band The Birthday Party (at least that's what I thought), but the audience came to see a legend, and he didn't disappoint. The live performance of "The Mercy Seat," which I was anticipating all night, was almost too intense to bear. Cave's baritone voice is as strong as ever, on classics like "Your Funeral My Trial" and "The Weeping Song" and newer tracks. On "God is in the House," while not one of my favorites, Cave told his audience of the importance of one line, "Moral sneaks in the White House," and asked the crowd, "What do you want to hear?" The show closed with a hard-rocking rendition of "Stagger Lee," a sick update of a traditional song, from "Murder Ballads." A brilliant songwriter as well as a charismatic performer, Nick Cave will always be the king of my music collection and of the dark music scene.
I saw a headline on Yahoo News for a video of Vladimir Putin doing judo (I think that's what it said). Apparently the "Prime Minister" of Russia is a black belt. Like the world needed another reason to be afraid of him.

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