Every Nick Cave concert is an event, even the weather treats it as such. Italy is a scorched country these days, undergoing a heatwave of historic proportions. The region of Veneto in particular is hit hard by the motionless air and the unforgiving sun - so much so that the government has announced an emergency state until the end of the year. Which does not detract from the magic and magnetism of Verona - but it could make it a gruesome task for Nick Cave to perform the high-octane show we had all been expecting.
And yet, a couple of hours before the start of the concert, the clouds closed up and the wind rose. There was a point when the wind grew so strong that the glasses and the bottles got blown off restaurant tables and the eyes got filled with flying sandstones. It was brutal and unrelenting. Warren Ellis would write the next day that the equipment was overturned and it took a heroic effort from the venue team to get everything ready. In hushed whispers and concerned tones, Italians were discussing the distinct possibility of a thunderstorm and even a tornado. In the end, though, after a brief rain and a field day for poncho sellers, the temperature dropped, the clouds disappeared and Nick Cave performed in near perfect conditions.
I have seen Nick Cave live multiple times now. Each time was a two-and-a-half-hour outburst of emotional intensity - wild, professional, utterly unique. And it was no different in Verona where Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds played at the famous Arena, a Roman amphitheatre built in the 1st century AD. In a way, I have seen it all before - Nick Cave casting a spell on a fair-haired girl during the impromptu section of "Higgs Boson Blues" and Warren Ellis's body contorting fiercely towards the end of "From Her To Eternity". I have seen it all, and yet there is no escaping the sheer magnitude of the occasion. 'I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...' screams a possessed Nick Cave during the sped-up second half of "Jubilee Street" - and this is all true. Every word of it.
The concert starts with a double punch from Abattoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus - "Get Ready For Love" (PRAISE HIM!!!) and "There She Goes, My Beautiful World", and your pumped up heart is already cooked. Next, there are old classics ("The Mercy Seat", "Red Right Hand", "The Ship Song") mixed with new ones cherry picked from his latest albums ("Bright Horses", "White Elephant", "I Need You"). It is a vast catalogue of music, and surprises come by way of the soaring, majestic "O Children" (introduced by Cave as a song written, well, for children) and the adrenaline rush of "The City Of Refuge" (I used to think Tender Prey was his best album, and after a performance like that - maybe I still do). The encore was brief but to the point, as Cave gave us the disarming beauty of "Into My Arms" and the propulsive energy of "Vortex". The playing was superb, the forays into the crowd were hypnotic, the microphone was dropped and the piano sections were spectacular - and still, amid it all, "Tupelo" was the best. It always is.
These days, the Arena is surrounded by the props for Aida and La Traviata. All these carriages and porticos and statues of Egyptian pharaohs - they look gargantuan and slightly impossible. And yet when Warren Ellis jokingly suggests that they should borrow them for Nick Cave's live shows - you laugh, but you laugh half-heartedly. Still, despite the big sound and the stage antics - you do not really need the props. You do not even need the screens. You do not really need anything, as there is not a moment during the whole show (which ends, inevitably, long after midnight) when you think that Nick Cave does not mean a word he utters or else that he is not there speaking to you. Screaming, croaking, whispering - but mostly, and most importantly, speaking.
