105/ Cave completes Brighton
This isn’t a review of the gig, obviously, since I wasn’t there. But it’s been very interesting watching Nick Cave navigate his huge one-off hometown show, re-upping his connection to a town that adores him.
For days, my online feeds have been drowned in conversation about (excitement for) this gig. I move in 6Music Dad-ish circles, I guess, more than I like to admit. I can’t remember so much focus thrown onto one specific local cultural event, not for a long time.
We weren’t ever planning to go. Flaming Lips were already onstage by the time our flight touched ground at Gatwick and, though we could hear Bad Seeds wafting over the air as we stumbled down the hill from Brighton station towards home, we were too knackered to be much bothered. Not even when Kylie showed up.
I’m more of an occasional admirer of Cave’s work than a proper fan. Of course his catalogue (including his recent catalogue) has powerful gems. But when I was young, I didn’t take to his melodrama. At Reading 1992, I was impatiently waiting for Kurt Cobain, rather than soaking up the main support. And you can imagine, I find his more unreconstructed anti-woke type pronouncements disheartening. In an odd way, including musically, these days I sort of put him in the same box as Rod Stewart. Like: a sometimes thrilling reprobate rocknroll youth, turned comfortable, small-c conservative-leaning, schmaltzy balladeer. That’s harsh but you get my drift. As time’s gone by, Cave and the establishment have curved and mellowed to meet in the middle. Though, I mean, he’s got some killer songs, no denying.
Late last year I did review (mostly positively) the Bad Seeds concert album Live God for The Quietus but here and now, what I’m more intrigued by is the unprecedented peripheral hoo-ha that’s swirled outwards, beyond the boundaries of the concert itself, connecting artist to city.
This has been an exercise in consolidating localised affection, by and for an artist already deeply beloved and treasured here, beyond what one might call his ‘natural’ fanbase. The gig was sold predominantly on its hometown one-off status, which it is, regionally, though it also sits at the top of a solid European summer run of similar open air headlines and festivals. That they took a touring project and successfully generated a sense of the ‘true local event’ was super-smart strategy.
Brighton Pride runs Saturday and Sunday, so Team Cave was able to buy onto the same physical and administrative event infrastructure already built, annually, in Preston Park, for the Friday night. It must have been much cheaper and less complex than building a small one day festival set-up from scratch. Whoever came up with that initial kernel of when and where to locate the concert deserves their flowers.
Someone joked online that it was nice of Pride organisers to add a ‘straight day’.
The support bill was also more like a bona fide festival afternoon than a band’s one-off hometown jam. I imagine Team Cave could’ve easily gotten away with just a couple of supports (a newbie and one reasonable name). Instead, along came Flaming Lips, who still ought to be big and beloved enough themselves to headline stages of this size across the UK. For some reason, this summer, Flaming Lips seem to have done a few slots where one thinks: how are they this low down this bill? Preston Park isn’t one of those, but it’s still interesting that such a prop-heavy ‘big stage oriented’ band were happy to play second fiddle. There are a fair few comments in local feeds this morning arguing Flaming Lips stole the show. I saw some alt-rock mates really arguing about it. True or not, it was an audacious decision to have them play. The crowd also got English Teacher, Cate Le Bon and Warmduscher.
Then, so much additional faff around the event. It reminds me of when a global music behemoth rolls into a town. Nick Cave isn’t a Beyoncé, Swift or Coldplay, really, he’s not even as mainstream famous as the biggest artists headlining Pride over the next couple of days (Raye and Diana Ross, with Jessie J, Self Esteem, Paris Hilton and DJ sets from Ru Paul and Mel C). But none of them have put together exclusive merch pop-ups around town, or cinema tie-ins. Team Cave made the effort.
Even before his surprise balcony appearance on the North Laine in the afternoon, the merch takeover at Resident Records and its hectic queues to grab exclusive items were guaranteed to focus attention. Apparently, organisers forgot to warn the iconic antique shop opposite, Snoopers Paradise, which had shoppers suddenly stuck inside (and obviously nobody able to get in). This made it into The Guardian but the shop has been very nice about it. PR overwhelmingly positive, hundreds squeezed down Kensington Gardens to watch a four song acoustic set and some dicking about. I suspect, had our flight been earlier, we might’ve got a quiet heads up about this surprise and toddled along, since our pal Tim was filming it for BBC News from an adjacent rooftop.
Cave even recorded a welcome announcement that they used over the tannoys at Brighton railway station.
He’s a long term patron of The Duke Of York’s cinema, a ten minute walk from Preston Park (actually directly on the route out of town towards the gig). So over the weekend it is screening a lineup of five films that he’s selected, with his own filmed introduction to each one. This includes Irreversible, Gaspar Noé’s controversial 2002 rape revenge fantasy, though amidst the hubbub of enthusiasm, I saw only a tiny amount of discussion about that. It also includes Pinocchio.
So, the show. For a lot of people, it was gig for the ages. The breathless enthusiasm of the reinvigorated fan, the blown away neutral, is very widespread in the aftermath, which is the exact social, organic outcome Team Cave would’ve hoped for.
Local media website Sussex News published a dissenting bad review of the gig, however in the face of such wild public acclaim, the (weirdly unnamed) writer makes basic tactical mistakes that undermine their intent. First, they moan that they had photo access revoked. Mentioning this when you’re about to diss a show just makes you look spiteful, like it’s the reason you might be being negative. Then the critic spends a paragraph complaining that the VIP area didn’t add enough ‘VIP’ value to be worth it. I didn’t know there was a VIP area but that’s the modern way. Yuck. The comments section beneath the review doesn’t hold back: ferocious, near universal condemnation of the writer. Maybe that’s why they stayed anonymous.
Finally, you get the pindrop perfect Insta moment climax, as Kylie appears for the murder ballad duet, ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’. By all accounts she gets the biggest cheers of the night. Susie Cave, Nick’s other half, designed the dress she wore. Kylie headlined this same stage for Pride back in 2019 and the Clash magazine reviewer reckons it’s been even longer since they sang together — it’s the first time since 2018. A surefire win, even for folks who don’t know more than two or three songs by this artist and by that point were running out of steam.
At some point mid-evening we’d left the house for the Co-op, in search of bread and eggs, and by that point there was definitely a steady, not insignificant, flow of people leaving Preston Park. I bet there’s a few kicking themselves that they missed Minogue.
My Instagram feeds quickly filled with blurry photos and thrilled comments, often photos of the big screen rather than the actual stage.
A hate tip to Sarah Mann on Facebook, for pointing out today that, as Cave sang ‘The Mercy Seat’, he was the same age, 68, as Johnny Cash was when he recorded his cover of it.
Between the Kylie moment and the North Laine balcony, offstage Cave did what he does onstage. He pulled out all the stops to retain kinship with / Kingship of the town he called home for so long. A remarkable marketing job.
icymi —
• BBC Sessions at Maida Vale are no more. A sad day, though at least the legendary studios will still be used for music, since they’re now owned by Hans Zimmer’s group. This BBC6Music ‘Morning Session’ Maida Vale Special with Steve Lamacq and Felix White is worth a listen.
• Some corners of the music snob internet have tantrumed hard that I used the p-word (‘punk’, that is) in my review for The Quietus of the new Charli XCX album Music, Fashion Film. Obviously I stand by every word.
• Michael Hann wrote an interesting essay about both albums from last week, The Strokes and Charli XCX, which I got so excited about that I commented on it.
• Victoria Marie Holmes writes brilliantly for The Zine UK, demolishing Boy George’s genocide denial song, ‘We Will Dance Again’. She goes line by line and it’s a tour-de-force, which as a bi-product also relieved me of the feeling that I ought to write about it.
• Conor Oberst on good form on Popcast
• Ben Folds testifies before the House/Senate Oversight hearing on the Kennedy Center
People leaving gigs happens 100% of the time. I have been to hundreds and all sorts, folks always leave, for all sorts of reasons, mostly logistical. Meanwhile thanks for a good review, enjoyed that.
I really enjoyed it, although the Wild God show at the O2 a couple of years ago was so incredible (the first 3 songs were like encores) that I kinda wish he’d played a few more from that album (he only played 2); plus, with 50,000 in attendance, I couldn’t get as front & centre as I usually like to. Still great though. I was also about 15 minutes late for the impromptu Laines show, as people delighted in telling me…