Nick Cave at the Paramount Theater in Seattle
by jivechoirboy
Pre-ramble
click here to get to the meat of the review
It seems I've been interested in Nick cave since the first time I was exposed to his music. I remember a few years back I wwent over to a friend's house and my he was just sitting there overwhelmed by complete and utter depression. Nick Cave's Murder Ballads was playing in the background.
Yeah, it was sad that my buddy was feeling depressed, but what impressed me is that as soon as I changed the music, he cheered up. That was the first time I witnessed the amazing musical power of Nick Cave.
Some time has passed and my appreciation of and involvement with Nick and his music has grown by leaps and bounds. Damn, I was excited when Django asked me to review this show.
The concert experience began when I arrived at the designated carpool meeting area and realized that nobody knew when the show was starting. Deciding that it would be better to get to Seattle early and miss rush hour (always a great idea), Django and I were ready to go at 3:00 p.m. on the dot. Of course, the rest of the carpool didn't show up until an hour later, and as Olea (our ill-fated driver) started cleaning out the back of her car, she announced that "there is no more smoking in my car." So we all got our nicotine fix and hit the road.
Olea's radio is broken, so by the time we were thirty miles down the road, the little honda was filled with small talk, the smell of sunflower seeds and redbull, and a few minutes later, cigarette smoke. "Fuck my rule," Olea said.
So we make it to seattle without any major problems, and everybody is starving. So off we go in search of food. We ate at Blimpie. We went in for a sandwich and came out with a whole lot more (see "also...").
So my first thought about the seating arrangement is "holy shit, I've got the best seat in the house!" I was right up front. The audience was behind me. My seat was immediately in front of Nick's piano. YEAH!
So I'm sitting there, waiting for the opening act, and all of a sudden, there she is. Neko Case. I immediately saw her amazing stage presence. She acted no better than anyone else in the theater. You could tell that she was up there because she's got the music in her.
The first sound out of her mouth blew me away. I'd never heard this woman before, so I had no idea what to expect, and with the show she put on, there's no way you'll hear me complaining. She's a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, and she loves the music. What else could you want? This isn't the last time I'll listen to her homegrown country croon.
And then there was Nick
Nick took the stage in a bright white spotlight with his omnipresent cocky manner that he wears like the suit of smoke that bellowed out of his lungs. He sat down a tthe piano, seeming almost moved, and immediately pounded out the first quick song while the white spotlight showed us exactly what he looked like.
Then the mood chaged and we were treated to a darker redder stage and a fleshed out band:
- Warren Ellis on violin and weird dancing (he even died a couple of times during Stagger Lee)
- Susan Stenger on bass (she was never lit enough to satisfy me)
- Jim White on drums (the other one, from the Dirty Three)
What can I say except that it was phenominal. While Nick was lit in blue, Warren Ellis would be lit in red. hiddeous strobes. The lights: blood red, neon blue, creepy bottom lighting. It was like living in another world. A demon world.
Combined with the band, Nick's expressions, the lighting and the core of his music, it was easy to feel the full impact of his art.
The audience's attempted banter was entertaining for everyone involved at first, but it seemed to wear on Nick after a while. After a couple of songs, a grrl shouted, "How old are you nick?" and he shot back without missing a beat, "I'm much too old for you darling." However, later in the show, as he was starting a slow ballad (Nick Cave doing a ballad!), another grrl yelled, "That's beautiful Nick!" and he immediately stopped playing. He sat there for a few seconds, looking disgusted before starting the song over.
What a great show. And to top it all off, he promised twice that he'd be back in September with the Bad Seeds. Warren Ellis and the band are no slouches, but Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds? That's just epic. Don't miss it unless you're some sort of moron.
It was raining after the show. Not a shitty rain, but one that is really fun to walk in. So we all walked back to the car, high on the experience. A mob of recently released concert goers (us included) walked down the sidewalk where a panhandler was asking for spare change. He looked as if he may have been suffering from input overload. He was running around and asking as many people as he could for change. Sometimes, he didn't even wait for someone to answer before he asked the next group of people. It amused me.
Post Show Depression
After walking throught the fun to walk in rain, we went on a quest to find the Hurricane. The four of us (yeah, I didn't really mention that there was four of us, did I?) sat on the shitty pleather booth and took in the ambiance. Olea and I had a Ranch dressing battle. One that I ended very efficiently and effectively with a large dollip that sealed her left eye. She surrendered and we both doubled up with laughter.
Of course, we couldn't get home unscathed. Olea was under the mistaken impression that the speed limit was 10 miles per hour higher than it actually is along a certain stretch of freeway, and she was dually pulled over. Not satisfied with a warning or interested in any explanation, the quota-filling bastard ticketed Olea for speeding and having expired tabs.
Of course, Jacob (one of the four of us that I forgot to mention earlier) was eating sunflower seeds and dropping the hulls out of the passenger side window. That was a really bad idea. Sgt. Fekal (or whatever his name is) ticketed jacob for littering less than one cubic foot. A $95 fine. Whatever.
But Nick Cave was cool. If only Stagger Lee had been in the car with us. He'd have shown that quotaslut a thing or two.
also...
Norm works at Blimpie!
So everybody in our little gaggle of Nick Cave fans was hungry. We started walking. It soon became apparent that with our limited funds, we were doomed to eat at the McDonalds at the end of the block. As we drew near the poison burger joint, loud country music assaulted us. It was coming from McD's, which seemed a little out of place to me, as the place was filled to the brim with gangsta-looking types. Luckily, I spied a Blimpie across the street.
When we went into the Blimpie and got in line for our grub, Jacob got his sandwich order filled first. Then it was Olea's turn. The sandwich maker, who looked a little like Norm Macdonald, started acting really weird. It's hard to describe what this guy was like. He seemed to be flirting with Olea, but I think it was just his normal sammy-making patter.
While we ate, he very loudly warned a very large lady that the floor was wet and asked her not to slip on it. Then he gave me a look like "Yeah. I harass everybody that comes in here." He refused to let anyone except Olea use the locked bathroom, and was generally a really goofy, funny cat.
Immediately after leaving, David got the idea to ask for his phone number for Olea, so he went back in. Olea, Jacob and I waited outside. David didn't come out with the guy's phone number, he came out with the guy himself. A wild and crazy dude who had quit his Blimpie job that day and was getting ready to go on a walkabout.
Anyway, there really isn't a better way to describe this dude than "he's just like Norm from Saturday Night Live." Mean, funny, a little crackheaded, and he actually seems like a pretty nice guy. If you see him around (and you'll know it if you do), tell him that he's got four fans in Bellingham.
-django
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