Relive the hilarious moment Nick Cave had an onstage meltdown with Warren Ellis
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have an imperious aura around them. A mystic bunch bound by some magic musical meshuga, they seem as tight as their own wandering muses on stage and when you’re following the whims of creative flow, that means you usually can’t go wrong. Moreover, with master musicians like Warren Ellis in your ranks, you always have the craftsmanship of technique to fall back on.
However, meltdowns are part of the game in the music realm. The gruelling ordeals of life on the road mixed with a highwire lifestyle and the myriad things that can go wrong on the night, can all create a cocktail of potential cockups. And like witnessing road rage, they present the world with an ugliness that you can’t help but watch.
Nick Cave has seen his fair share in the past but that was mostly in his Birthday Party days. As Mick Harvey once said, “Managing The Birthday Party?” Mick Harvey humorously muses, “What is it they say about training cats?” Nick Cave’s first vehicle to stardom was a vehicle that was always headed towards a beautiful, flaming wreckage. And when a fateful poster was produced declaring The Birthday Party: “The most violent band in the world,” they had signed their own death certificate.
However, those days were long behind the highly polished Bad Seeds when they took to the stage on 2009. Or so you would have thought, but Christ on a bike you’d be proven wrong if you thought blips could be ironed out for good. And you’d also be thankful for that fact too, because casual human failure can certainly be a laughable thing.
Nick Cave and Warren Ellis are currently on the road, in fact, they just played an awe-inspiring show in London yesterday at All Points East, as they have been since winter, blessing the world with a balm of exorcising transcendence. Anyone who has seen them knows they are as closely knit as artists as Bing Crosby and a sweater. However, the clip below is a lesson for life: Even the greats have an off day.
In this 2009 clip, Cave upholds his usual standards as the sermonising frontman. Meanwhile, Warren Ellis seems to be defying Pythagoras’ arithmetic laws of music and inventing new key progressions. This harmonic hellscape continues to enrage Cave further as he almost pleads for mercy from the dogrel-hollering chorus coming from the back corner. Never has such a beautiful piece of music been met with such cruel hexing by one wizard straying to the dark side live on stage. And somehow it’s truly wonderful to watch.
