NICK CAVE returns to Milan for the only Italian date of the new tour with a long-awaited and sold-out concert.
The Australian artist's last two tours had demonstrated that his concerts are real emotional experiences, and those who attended them do not give up on returning.
Rock with injections of gospel and soul
The atmosphere of the new album, however, has partly changed, Wild God is a sunnier album, and the injections of gospel and soul into Cave's torrid rock are also confirmed in the live performance where, in addition to a perfect band, a choir of four purely black voices.
He enters the stage already smiling and with “Wild God” he transforms into the perfect master of ceremonies, supported by the choir of four voices behind him who accompany him in the overwhelming gospel-tinged finale. We are only at the second song of the evening, and Cave is already among the audience, whose contact he then seeks throughout the concert, walking back and forth on the catwalk above the barriers, motioning to come closer, as if one could get closer than Like this.
Closeness to the public
In this continuous rush from the stage to the barriers, Cave also cuts out some moments on the piano such as the touching “I Need You”, the sweet “Long Dark Night”, the delicate “Joy” (“a word so small but so big”, he says in introducing it), the gospel-tinged acoustic “Cinnamon Horses” and the splendid “O Children” with its exciting crescendo, which began on the piano and ended up in the arms of the audience.
It is clear how much contact with the public is sought by Nick Cave, not only physical but also emotional contact. However, every now and then he doesn't give up on toning down the tone, playing with the audience and leading choirs. This is how the ending of the splendid “Conversion”, performed in an incandescent version, becomes a call and response game with the audience (“stop! you're beautiful”) repeated on several occasions during the evening.
The new album but also the repertoire
In a set list that almost entirely covers the new album, some songs from the past also have their place, the most torrid one by Cave, such as the impetuous “From Her to Eternity” sung once again by the audience, the very dark and devil-may-care “Tupelo ” and the final pairing of the masterpieces “RedRightHand” and “TheMercySeat”.
For the closing of the concert we return to the present, with the intense “White Elephant”, a song that starts in darkness and ends with light in a gospel explosion, with the choir joining Cave on stage for an exciting finale .
The encore opens with “O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)”, a fitting memory of Anita Lane, Cave's former partner in the Birthday Party and the first “Bad Seeds” to whom the song is dedicated, to then return to two classics of the past, “Papa Won't Leave You, Henry” and a magnificent and torrid “The Weeping Song”.
In his arms
It is the end of an exciting concert, Cave greets the audience and the band's musicians who leave the stage, but instead of following them he sits down at the piano for a last gift, a solo version of “Into my arms”, listened in religious silence by public.
With a concert with gospel-soul tones that were sometimes almost sunny and had darker moments, Nick Cave managed to drag the Forum audience into a vortex of emotions like few other singers are able to do once again tonight.
SCORE: 8.00
Review by Giorgio Zito for musicadalpalco.com (Click to read the entire article)
THE LADDER
Frogs
Wild God
Song of the Lake
Or Children
Jubilee Street
From Her to Eternity
Long Dark Night
Cinnamon Horses
Tupelo
Conversion
Bright Horses
Joy
I Need You
Carnage
Final Rescue Attempt
Red Right Hand
The Mercy Seat
White Elephant
encore:
O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)
Papa Won't Leave You, Henry
The Weeping Song
Into My Arms
WEB & SOCIAL
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