NICK CAVE, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN, JUNE 20, 2014

And some people
Say it's just rock 'n roll
Oh, but it gets you
Right down to your soul
............................review and photos by Joe Kotas.................................

Mind blown. What can I say??

Okay, let's start with the opening band.. Warpaint played.  I'm sorry, they were just plain lame.  Plucking at their instruments, kinda grooving, but me thinking the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Warpaint started promptly at 8:00.. and were done soon afterward.  Before you knew it, they were playing their hit, "Elephant" but nobody seemed to know or care.  Warpaint came across like they were more into the idea of being rock stars than delivering music to the masses and I wondered how the next band would fare, when the essence of music is plucking at strings in the air?

well ... THEN UP JUMPED THE DEVIL!!

Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds took the stage and by the second song, Jubilee St. it was clear that we were in for a rare and delicious PERFORMANCE of EPIC proportions!!

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A manic, maniac genius proud of the art he created and delivering it as it deserves to be heard, Nick and his band soon whipped  themselves and the crowd into a frenzy.

The contrast between this and the previous band couldn't be more obvious, Cave and the Bad Seeds were painting a picture, creating an ATMOSPHERE, building an EDIFICE...  then SMASHING IT down.

Cave's lyrics take you down the road into dimly lit whorehouses where murder, Jesus, god and the devil all take their places in turn.

Next up.. Tupelo.  I carried the burden of Tupelo.  BAM!  Another power packed powder keg  going off in all directions in a timed demolition.. BOOM.  BOOM. BOOM.

This is why you go see Nick Cave, Patti Smith and David Bowie, they capture lightning in a bottle. Not so much musicians, as shamans casting a spell... Cave himself intoxicated in his own music... it becomes infectious, highly contagious and the NICE AND LOUD, PERFECTLY TIGHT, bubonic plague never sounded so good.

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No subject is taboo for Cave.  His songs usually involve heavy subjects: love and death; sex and murder; prostitution and pleasure; pain and redemption, affliction and addiction, the dark side,  YOU GET THE IDEA?  THIS AINT JUSTIN BEIBER. 

Go son, go down to the water
And see the women weeping there
Then go up into the mountains
The men, they are weeping too

Father, why are all the women weeping?
They are all weeping for their men
Then why are all the men there weeping?
They are weeping back at them

This is a weeping song
A song in which to weep
While all the men and women sleep
This is a weeping song
But I won't be weeping long

Father, why are all the children weeping?
They are merely crying son
O, are they merely crying, father?
Yes, true weeping is yet to come.

His subject matter gives goosebumps.  He is taking you to the other side of the tracks.  He is thinking things through so you don't have to! ;)  (sounded good-ed)  Philosophy, experience, playing piano, singing, dancing a merry tune, moving and grooving, exorcising demons and directing his band in a fierce struggle beyond good and evil, raging against the dying of the light.

And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
And I'm not afraid to die.

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Only Peter Hammill comes to mind in a similar vein of the suffering poet category, the musician dealing with monumental issues.  Yet Cave seems to escape unscathed. He puts his toe in the water only to tell you it's not fit for human consumption, but you can try it anyway if you want.  Cave asks the serious questions and captures the human condition in his songs-as-stories and the books he writes.  Is there redemption?  Cave seems to get by through his love and the power of creation.

It is as though Nick Cave's reflection on the options available have strengthened his resolve to leave an indelible mark on rock n' roll history.  I was touched by his connection to humanity.  Wading through the crowd, spending time with the audience, touching hands and looking people in the eye.  Nick Cave, not an out-of-touch rock star, but a down to earth mensch, just like you and me and all the polite people of Milwaukee.  At one point, he made reference to the last time he was in this town many years ago, asking if anyone had seen the show so they could tell him what it was like  since he had no memory of it himself.  Yet thirty years later he brings a super-professional product to the stage (and will do it thirty times in the next two months) as he builds his legacy, a la Iggy Pop-the workingman musician who always gave his all, 200% every time.  Bravo!

All the clocks have stopped in Memphis now
In the Lorraine Motel, it's hot, it's hot
That's why they call it the Hot Spot
I take a room with a view
Hear a man preaching in a language that's completely new, yea
Making the hot cocks in the flophouse bleed
While the cleaning ladies sob into their mops
And a bellhop hops and bops
A shot rings out to a spiritual groove
Everybody bleeding to that Higgs Boson Blues
If I die tonight, bury me
In my favorite yellow patent leather shoes
With a mummified cat and a cone-like hat
That the caliphate forced on the Jews
Can you feel my heartbeat?
Can you feel my heartbeat?


DO YOU LOVE ME???

YES WE DO!

Joe Kotas
6/22/14 Chicago