{"id":80273,"date":"2024-11-01T11:05:14","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T08:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=80273"},"modified":"2024-11-01T11:05:14","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T08:05:14","slug":"impressions-from-nick-caves-sportpaleis-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/impressions-from-nick-caves-sportpaleis-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Impressions from Nick Cave&#8217;s Sportpaleis concert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Long live Nick Cave! He came out of the wings of the Sportpaleis in better spirits than ever before \u2013 he checked himself in the mirror to make sure he wasn\u2019t, by accident, Dirk De Wachter \u2013 before shaking yet another life-changing concert out of the tight sleeves of his black suit jacket.<\/p>\n<p>Nick Cave had come to the Sportpaleis to present his new album \u2018Wild God\u2019. The two words of the title immediately encapsulate the entire evolution of the artist: from his early years as an impossible Berlin junkie (wild) to the wise saviour he is today (God). \u2018Wild God\u2019 is also the last album in his trilogy of mourning, after \u2018Skeleton Tree\u2019 and \u2018Ghosteen\u2019 \u2013 the conclusion of a merciless chapter in his life. Fortunately, unlike the previous two albums, Cave does shed the veil of sorrow this time. \u2018Wild God\u2019 has something triumphant live. This is the ray of sunshine after the dark night, the liberation after the fires of hell, a celebration of life. Some people just thought it was a boring album. That\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n<p>Cave started with \u2018Frogs\u2019, by far the second best song entitled \u2018Frogs\u2019 that was released in 2024 (after Bolis Pupul\u2019s). Cave, that rousing shaman, immediately started rushing from left to right. Everyone wanted to touch him, they stretched out their fingers to him like thirsty people for a glass of water. If he asked for money for a laying on of hands, he would be richer than Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Frogs\u2019 was the start of a fairly crushing beginning. The title track \u2018Wild God\u2019, which began on the grand piano and ended in the stratosphere, immediately proved that Cave, in financial need, could always build a career as an evil American televangelist. (Look how the audience yearns for him!) The end of that song (\u2018BRING YOUR SPIRIT DOWN!\u2019) was pure ecstasy. Equally impressive: the name-dropping \u2018Jubilee Street\u2019, a song that also ended in a gratifying catharsis. Live, Cave is at his best in the last part of a song: his songs don\u2019t fizzle out, they explode.<\/p>\n<p>Cave had barely gotten to \u2018Song of the Lake\u2019 when his tie had to be loosened. He used a white towel to wipe the stage clean (which has to happen) and was thrown a bouquet. A few songs later \u2013 happy to see that the old grumpy Cave is still alive \u2013 he simply threw it back into the audience.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1250\" height=\"703\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SDFhUIOL0Yk\" title=\"Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Bright Horses - Live at Sportpaleis Antwerpen - 30\/10\/2024 HD\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Best linking line? The one with \u2018O Children\u2019. \u2018I wrote this song 22 years ago, when I saw my children playing. It\u2019s a dark, uncompromising song about the world we\u2019re leaving behind for them, about our failure to protect children everywhere on earth \u2013 unfortunately a relevant theme. But okay, will you sing along?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>There was some grumbling about Cave beforehand. Some people think that with his latest records, \u2018Ghosteen\u2019 in particular, he\u2019s reached a downright transcendent level, others are nostalgic for the time when the Bad Seeds were still really Bad, when guitars were allowed to rumble, when you had to be careful not to prick yourself on used needles lying around at a Nick Cave concert. I don\u2019t know if I necessarily belong to camp two, and I have nothing against the dreamy creative path of supreme Seed Warren Ellis, who by the way is starting to resemble Moondog more and more every day, but I do know that my biggest highlights tonight, apart from a heartbreaking \u2018Bright Horses\u2019, all came from earlier work. And oh boy, what highlights!<\/p>\n<p>\u2018From Her to Eternity\u2019 was, as always, a sing-along anthem. Not for sports palaces, but for squats, circus tents and limbos of hell. There was more of a threatening malice simmering in that song than ever before: love it. A slowly building \u2018Red Right Hand\u2019 ended in a massive, \u2018Seven Nation Army\u2019-like singalong. \u2018Tupelo\u2019 was downright aggressive, as it should sound. But I was happiest when Cave not only pulled out \u2018Papa Won\u2019t Leave You, Henry\u2019 in the encore (habbahabba!), but also \u2018The Weeping Song\u2019, the very first Cave song I ever loved. Those old songs remain twelve-carat hits that brought impetuosity, daring and dirty rock-\u2019n-roll to the set tonight.<\/p>\n<p>A question for human resources: if Nick Cave picks songs from thirteen different records, but not from \u2018Murder Ballads\u2019, is he just doing it to annoy me?<\/p>\n<p>When he softly struck the last notes of \u2018Into My Arms\u2019 solo behind his piano, you could only think: this is a really big one? Leaving, he looked ten times happier than a few years ago. There is a spring in his step again, life no longer has to weigh a thousand kilos. Which way would he go now? The one of more beauty and more light? Or the one of the rock-\u2019n-roll danger of the past?<\/p>\n<p>I had a comforting thought on my way home. When we die, we either go to heaven or hell, right? But whatever it is, I am sure: in both places they will be listening to the music of Nick Cave, savior and antichrist in one handy value package.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1250\" height=\"703\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RQ0sIvSmEfI\" title=\"Nick Cave &amp; The Bad Seeds @ Sportpaleis Antwerpen - Red Right Hand 30\/10\/&#39;24\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long live Nick Cave! He came out of the wings of the Sportpaleis in better spirits than ever before \u2013 he checked himself in the mirror to make sure he wasn\u2019t, by accident, Dirk De Wachter \u2013 before shaking yet another life-changing concert out of the tight sleeves of his black suit jacket. Nick Cave &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":80274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[12057,78705,79870],"class_list":["post-80273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-concert","tag-nick-cave","tag-sportspaleis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80276,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80273\/revisions\/80276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}