Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Birmingham Academy 05/05/2008

Everybody lets you down eventually.

It's something worth remembering.

Trains for example always let you down. Their unreliability is about the only thing you can rely on. So it is with a resigned inevitability, we find ourselves sat outside Birmingham going nowhere. Our 25 minute train journey passing double that. The train stop start stops and the city skyline taunts and teases with its proximity. We find ourselves within sight but unable to depart. And as the clock ticks ever closer to stage time, agitation and irritation set in. If my life were a novel, this would be a literary device hinting at the disappointment yet to come. But my life isn't a novel and this isn't a literary device. It's just a really fucking aggravating train journey.

Nearing the Academy, we can hear Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds already on stage. The rhythmic, chugging strains of 'Dig Lazarus Dig' greeting us as we enter the venue. One quick but much needed toilet stop later, Lazarus has risen and we're circling the tightly packed crowd trying to find a way through. No luck. The crowd is standing solid and tall. Near impenetrable, while on stage 'Tupelo' rages, full storm. We settle at the left side edge, frustrated and virtually unable to see a thing. Glimpses of Nick flailing on stage are caught. Black shirt unbuttoned to the chest, moustache perfectly trimmed and the pushed back balding mullet hair fighting loose, he looks the very model of a 70s porn lothario. With a relaxed manner and veiled and not so veiled witticisms, he swats back the seemingly never ending calls for crowd favourites. While to his left, with his black shirt buttoned up and hobo beard as unkempt as ever, Warren Ellis is as much a focus point as the Bad Seeds leader. His performance and movement as wild as his appearance. Mick Harvey meanwhile, seems relegated to bit part player. No longer the second in command, he plays his part solidly, if somewhat in the sidelines.

And while we can't see the rest of the band, we can certainly hear them. Especially the roll and rumble of the rhythm section. In fact, so loud in the mix at points, that it would be near impossible to ignore them. So loud in the mix are they, that at points the fixtures above us vibrate with a violent buzz. It leads to many of the songs having a muddy, heavy feel to them where a lightness of touch would have been more appropriate. For a band as revered for their live sound as the Bad Seeds are, it seems almost unthinkable that they would suffer from such a poor mix. But they do and it hangs like a cloud over the set.

A set which on paper reads like a dream. While pulling heavily from the new album, there are enough classics littering the set list to make it feel like a greatest hits show. Of sorts. 'Deanna' and 'Red Right Hand' get their expected airing, while more surprisingly, 'Your Funeral, My Trial' is dusted down for a spectacularly sweet rendition. And for their part, the newer songs stand up pretty well. Despite being the least immediate of Nick Cave records, the songs tonight sound more urgent and aggressive. 'Today's Lesson' has an energy it lacks on record. Cave stalking the front of stage, jabbing the words violently into the ether. 'We Call Upon The Author' is ragged and rousing, swaggeringly intense while 'Moonland' is driven by a grooving bass so infectious, it should be Nick's obligation to provide an antidote.

And sadly, in a way, he does. For while the fan in me wants to declare the gig a resounding success and offer nothing but glowing hyperbole, I'm afraid I can't. And as much as I'd like to lay the blame on the venue or the sound or my position in the crowd, I can't do that either. Where the last album and tour found them performing a polished professional set complete with gospel singers, here they've reduced the performance to a bare minimum. To a base level of force and fury. This is Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds raw. In all their ragged glory. Tonight they are loud, angry and in places unfocused. Nick the crooner is nowhere to be seen, his place taken by Nick the howler, the shouter, the ranting prophet. And while this fly by the seat of your pants attitude suits the looser, more organic and lyrically wordy nature of the newer songs, it does no favours for the older songs. Any vocal subtlety is forgotten. Songs which are built around a solid structure suffer when played with the abandon of a rough uncaring band. 'The Ship Song' is not only stripped of it's piano motif but also of it's beauty. 'Straight To You', the first Cave song I truly loved, is butchered. The tune, manhandled so badly, that the song has to be restarted halfway through. And once it is, Nick sings it with the interest of a man who wants the next three minutes to be over as quick as possible. As for the abominable encored 'Into My Arms', where does one start? I'm not sure which is worse, the inappropriate jazz drumming that Jamie Cullum might tack on, Nick abandoning the song's smooth balladeering for a rough vocal or the fluffing of the song's intro. I'm all for artists trying out new things, but after the mauling garage punk attack on 'There She Goes My Beautiful World', it’s clear some things are best left alone. Of the old songs played tonight, only those with dark aggressive origins survive intact. 'Deanna' and 'Tupelo' are clearly meant to be played with a wild, untamed temerity while 'Papa Won’t Leave You Henry' positively shines as the show's dynamic, intense and rough highlight. So good is it, that set closer, 'More News From Nowhere' sounds positively pedestrian in its wake. It makes for a somewhat lacklustre, unremarkable and anticlimactic ending to the main show.

Leaving the mixed bag that is the encores. The aforementioned 'Into My Arms' and 'There She Goes...' are balanced out by a thrillingly heavy 'Hard On For Love' while 'Lyre Of Orpheus' sees the crowd step into the gospel singers place for a rather shambolic call and response of 'oh mamma'. Finishing with an angry take on 'Stagger Lee', Nick once more fluffs his lines. To their credit, the band don't miss a beat as Nick skips a few verses, realises his error and finds his place once more. And then it's over.

For which I found myself thankful. For once, I didn't want more. Disappointment soaked my very being. Maybe I'd built it up in my mind too much. The previous two Nick Cave gigs I'd been to stand as two of the best I've ever attended. So this could never have lived up to my expectations. But I never expected to leave a Nick Cave gig feeling as I did. Maybe the train journey and my subsequent position in the crowd affected my enjoyment. Maybe Nick is attempting to deconstruct his standing as a critical darling by sabotaging his back catalogue. Maybe he's trying to recapture some of the bluster and unpredictability of his youth. Or maybe, just maybe, he was having an off night. Whatever the explanation, despite moments of greatness, I don't think I've ever felt so let down on my way home from a gig.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - more news from nowhere (live on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross)

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