(photo courtesy of yavan)
Nick Cave rocking the Moni Lazariston in Thessaloniki, Greece
Note: This is three weeks overdue, so I'm not going to do a full review. I did want to mention it though since he's doing a North American tour soon.
I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in while on vacation in Thessaloniki, Greece on June 6th. It was my first time seeing them live so I can't really compare it to other recent tours based on anything other than live recordings and DVDs I've seen. Compared to the footage I saw from the grandiose Abattoir Blues tour, the Dig Lazarus Dig tour is stripped down and a lot more raw (no doubt under influence from the Grinderman album.)
They played a bunch of material from the new record, opening the show with "Night of the Lotus Eaters." I like that song on record, but it came off a thousand times better live (it was much heavier in concert.) Other stand out performances from the new record included "Midnight Man" (my favorite song on the new album), "Today's Lesson" and "Dig Lazarus Dig." He played a lot of the back catalog stuff you'd want (and expect) to hear like "Weeping Song," "Red Right Hand," "Deanna," "The Mercy Seat," and "Stagger Lee." He was in high spirits that night and even took some requests. He seemed particularly thrilled about the name of the venue: Moni Lazariston...which was certainly appropriate for the new record.
As I mentioned earlier, last year's Grinderman record seems to have greatly influenced this tour. Cave only played piano on one song, opting instead to play a rawer, funkier organ which breathed new life into old classics. I know a bunch of the US dates are already sold out, but hopefully you can secure tickets to a show near you. It was the best show I've been to so far this year and I imagine it's going to be difficult to top.
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