Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live at Hammersmith Apollo: Chaos, control, and complete surrender
As the country braced for the so-called storm of the century, a more imaginative few found shelter inside Hammersmith Apollo, where Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds kicked up something far heavier.
Touring Push The Sky Away, the band hit the stage without ceremony—five suited figures, then Warren Ellis tearing a path to his post, and finally Cave himself, gliding out like he’d been lurking in the shadows all along. No hello, no warning. Straight into ‘We No Who U R’, slow and low, tightening the grip from the start.
Then ‘Jubilee Street’ dropped, and the room snapped awake. Cave howled, convulsed, and clawed at the crowd like he was dragging something ancient out of them. The bass hit like a punch to the ribs. Pint glasses rattled, people swayed, and Cave fed off every inch of it, climbing into the front rows like a man possessed.
“I got a foetus on a leash.”
Nick Cave
Seeing The Bad Seeds live isn’t like hearing them. It’s sweat, bruises, and sudden tenderness. One minute they’re ripping through ‘Abattoir Blues’, next they’re breaking hearts with ‘Love Letter’. No big light shows, no bullshit. Just five men squeezing everything they can out of the songs.
Cave let ‘Far From Me’ hang heavy in the air, dragging the room down into the dark with him. Then ‘Higgs Boson Blues’ snapped it all back. When he snarled about Miley Cyrus floating in Toluca Lake, it felt like the whole place cracked open.
Special mention to Warren Ellis, who looked half-drunk on the chaos, dragging sounds out of his violin like it owed him money. He and Cave—they weren’t just playing songs; they were ripping open something bigger.
Before closing out with ‘Push The Sky Away’, Cave tipped his hat to Lou Reed—gone, but not forgotten.
The encore didn’t mess around. Five tracks, no fat, every one heavier than the last. ‘Red Right Hand’ brought the house down, but it was the new cut ‘Give Us A Kiss’ that stuck in the ribs long after the lights came up.
Nick Cave isn’t just one of the last great frontmen—he’s a reminder that real, wild energy can’t be bottled. Not then, not now.
