They may not have won the Polaris Music Prize this week, but something tells me that Black Mountain aren't too distraught about it, because they scored a helluva consolation prize: a last-minute opening slot for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. It's a pairing that makes no sense and perfect sense all the same: while the Vancouver stoner-rockers' Q107-ready mix of Floydian trippery and Sabbath-sized riffery seems antithetical to Cave's gospel-punk poetry, both bands' music carries the promise of impending apocalypse and the rapture within. Splitting their set equally between their boogie-riffic 2005 self-titled debut and this year's more epic In the Future, Black Mountain don't say a whole lot, as singer/guitarist Stephen McBean seeks sanctuary behind his long brown locks and rich geetar solos. But maybe he's hiding cuz he knows that the man who follows is about to teach everyone in the room the difference between a showman and a man who merely performs shows.
Though it's safe to say that a Nick Cave show makes for a bouncer's dream gig — in that the aged complexion of the crowd negates the need for ID checks — the man who puts the "awe" in Australian is enjoying something of a rejuvenation, with the success of last year's anarchic Grinderman side project (comprised of fellow moonlighting Bad Seeds Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunous) carrying over to this year's equally brash Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! album. While there are no Grinderman songs performed — audience cries for "No Pussy Blues" are waved off with a stern "we can't play that" — Cave has retained the most striking elements of that one-off excursion: his unhinged, amateur guitar-playing, the blood-letting ferocity and that perfect porno 'stache (a look that seems to have caught on with bassist Casey and taken to new extremes by well-bearded guitarist/violinist Ellis).
In effect, the Bad Seeds' performance tonight makes Lazarus sound like a dry-run demo: opener "Night of the Lotus Eaters" is elevated from a hypno-bass-pulse creeper to a swaggering lounge-lizard workout that makes excellent use of the band's three percussionists, and the sleazy title track is rendered as a blues-explosive chain-gang singalong. But while Cave takes no prisoners, he at the very least takes requests, and on this night it adds up to a thorough excavation of his 25-year discography: a desert-storming "Tupelo," a slow-burning "Red Right Hand," a beer-swayed reading of "The Ship Song," a Motown-gone-maniacal take on "Deanna," an absolutely incendiary "Hard on for Love," and a raging rip through the crazed Celtic jig "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry" to close out the set. Nevermind that he has a new album to promote; moreso than his preacher-man fervor and lithe physicality, Cave
understands that to be a showman is to give the people what they want.
It's not until the encore that Cave acknowledges any of his fine work from the past decade outside of Lazarus, with a blitzkrieged thrash through the 2004 Abbatoir Blues track "Get Ready for Love" that compensates for the absence of the original's gospel chorus with pure adrenalized aggression, and a call-and-response rendition of the title track to the accompanying Lyre of Orpheus album. But to cap a career-spanning set, there is no better choice than "Stagger Lee," an ageless murder ballad that encapsulates Cave's favourite memes like no other: bloodlust, death, popular myth, profanity and ungodly noise. At the top of the encore, Cave informed us that the Bad Seeds were "just going to run through some songs 'cause we're delirious." Never have performer and audience been on more equal footing.