In a way, it's somewhat disheartening to go to a Nick Cave concert. The moment the dramatic, black suited figure appears on stage, stylish and spindly, you know that nothing will come close to that experience. I have seen Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space played live and I have seen The North Sea Scrolls in the beautiful setting of an Anglican church and I have seen Michael Gira going off in a cowboy hat. None of it blows you away quite like an unholy, 10-minute version of "Stagger Lee".
The Bad Seeds' recent performance in Lucca was not my first experience of seeing Cave live. There was one concert in Moscow a few years back and it was a much more stripped down affair with four musicians, little guitar and Push The Sky Away played in its entirety. There was Warren Ellis having a fit during "From Her To Eternity". There was a rare performance of "West Country Girl". There was a huge Russian crowd begging Cave for "Foi Na Cruz" (which he refused to do) and then totally losing it during "Higgs Boson Blues". It was wonderful, and I knew I would be back for more.
Nick Cave gives you everything you could possibly need from a live concert, and then he builds something on top of that. Something like a rare b-side with Ellis playing the flute or the world's most intense performance of "Tupelo".
And it was no different in Lucca. With Skeleton Tree spread all over the generous setlist (19 songs over two and a half hours), he did "Loverman" and he did "Shoot Me Down" and he even was kind enough to do "Deanna" at the request of someone in the front row. And then there was all that crowd-bullying that climaxed during "The Weeping Song" when he actually got physically involved. Cave knows he is playing Jesus with the audience, and the brilliant reference to the Bible (him throwing water into the crowd and then promising fish) was very well-judged.
The whole of the band (seven people, no less) was having a great time, and that is something you can hardly misread. When Cave says he loves his audience, you know he does. When he sings 'I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...', you know he is. He knows, too, what it means to play "Do You Love Me?" at the beginning and "Rings Of Saturn" at the end. He knows exactly what he is good at. And that is many things, not least saying at one point how handsome he thinks he is. Really, what a man.
Why go anywhere else if you can go to Italy? Why go to any other live show if you can see Nick Cave? In Lucca, on the 17th of July, at around midnight, you almost believed these questions as, grateful and exhausted, you leapt to your feet during the encore. 'Because this is the moment. This is what we do. And this is what we are'.
