Credit: Wikimedia

Watch Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform ‘Stagger Lee’ at Glastonbury Festival

Tue 2 July 2013 19:46, UK

We take a quick look back at the weekend’s events at Glastonbury Festival, and the highlight for many was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ aggressively captivating performance on the Pyramid Stage.

Nick Cave, Warren Ellis and the band decided to focus predominantly on new material from their fifteenth studio album, Push The Sky Away. Of course, they threw in a few crowd-pleasers, notably the only track of their encore, the fan favourite ‘Red Right Hand’.

But, what I really enjoyed was watching Nick Cave stand and walk over the front row, straw-hatted, sunglass-wearing, neon face-painted youngsters, who were clearly organised festival goers waiting for the headline act…Mumford and Sons.

One track in which Cave was at his trampling best was ‘Stagger Lee’, as he sings about the devil up pops a red-haired mystery woman dressed all in white reaching out and glaring into the Australian’s eyes.

Hypnotic for a number of reasons, one because it felt as if we were witnessing a spine-tingling spiritual moment between the two, the second because she looked absolutely terrifying.

Please don’t feel like we intruded too much on a Shakespeare moment, though, bear in mind Nick Cave isn’t whispering sweet nothings in her ear, he is at his lyrical best in this track:

“I’m a bad motherfucker, don’t you know and i’ll crawl over
Fifty good pussies just to get one fat boy’s asshole” Said Stagger Lee
Just then Billy Dilly rolls in and he says “You must be
That bad motherfucker called Stagger Lee” I’m Stagger Lee
Yeah, I’m Stagger Lee and you better get down on your knees and
Suck my dick, ‘cos if you don’t you’re gonna be dead” Said Stagger Lee
Billy dropped down and slobbered on his head
And Stag filled him full of lead oh yeah.

See the performance below.