The healing power of music was on full display as Nick Cave and Warren Ellis took the stage on Sunday night at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland.
It wasn’t so much about joy — although, of course, there was plenty of that to be found in the found in the capacity crowd — but more so about cleansing. Some 3,000 fans walked into the 1930s Art Deco movie palace carrying various individual (and collective) weights on their shoulders, from dealing with the last two years of the pandemic to fears over the war in Ukraine, and yet, somehow, the loads seemed lighten as the night progressed.
That’s not because anything was solved, fixed or figured out during the evening. It’s just that the concert reminded us that we’re not alone in all of this.
And how important is that in 2022?
It was not, however, an easy night of music. It never is when Cave comes to town.
Instead, it was as richly cathartic a night of music as I can remember, as Cave brought the crowd to life through the tear-stained songs from his last two albums.
The vocalist performed nearly all of “Ghosteen,” the heart-wrenching 2019 double album that was written in the aftermath of death of his 15-year-old son Arthur. The set list also included six of the eight songs featured on last year’s grief-filled “Carnage,” which was the first duo outing by Cave and Warren — a longtime member of Cave’s Bad Seeds band.
Cave and Ellis, who perform a second show at the Paramount on Monday, opened the concert in brilliant fashion with the “Spinning Song,” Cave’s latest ode to the “king of rock ‘n’ roll” who had “black jelly hair” and “crashed onto a stage in Vegas.” The Elvis-inspired number also happens to be the opener for “Ghosteen” and the pair would stick to that album for the next two offerings as well — the equally mesmerizing “Bright Horses” and “Night Raid.”
Cave moved more like a Shakespearean actor than a rock star onstage, powering every move with added drama and favoring exaggerated motions, so that even those in sitting in the balcony could see the action, but he also spent much time at the long black piano situated stage right.
Ellis, a multi-instrumentalist who performs on electronics, violin and more, was seated for most of the show, rocking back and forth as he propelled the music and counting in the songs (“2-3-4”) with much gusto.
“I just like to watch him count things in,” Cave said of Ellis. “He has like the sexiest counting in rock ‘n’ roll history.”
He’d then somewhat revise that assessment, commenting about how great singer-songwriter-guitarist Jonathan Richman is at counting in songs.
“This is for Jonathan Richman,” said Cave, dedicating the next song of the evening — which, unfortunately, did not turn out to be a cover of Richman’s “I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar.”
(The dedicated song turned out to be “Waiting for You,” which is actually another stunning offering from “Ghosteen.”)
Cave and Ellis — who were backed by three excellent vocalists as well as another multi-instrumentalist — did perform one cover on the night, delivering a splendid rendition of T-Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer.”
Cave balanced out the intensely harrowing music with bits of humor and levity throughout the night, most of which came in the form of between-song banter. There was even a moment when he reached out for a bit of crowd participation late in the 16-song main set, asking for people in the balcony to go “ape (expletive)” when he said the word “balcony” in the song “Balcony Man.”
“OK, this sounds like a dumb idea,” Cave said. “But it kind of works if you put your heart into it — like most things.”
Cave certainly put his heart into this show. And the result definitely lifted ours.
Source: www.mercurynews.com