Nick Cave was joined onstage by PJ Harvey during an special, one-off concert in London on Sunday night.
The gig, which coincides with the publication of Cave’s second novel, The Death Of Bunny Munro, took place at the Palace Theatre in London. Cave was taking questions from the floor, and at one point a girl asked whether he would ask Harvey to join him onstage if she were present in the theatre.
Harvey, seated in a box to the left of the stage, gave Cave a wave, and he said he’d love her to sing but only if she wanted to. "If it was the other way round, I’d be mortified," he said, and snapped back at one fan who requested that they "play ‘Fleeting Love’" with a sharp "you’re a funny cunt". Interestingly, Cave had opened the evening singing ‘West Country Girl’, written about his relationship with Harvey.
Harvey, wearing a shimmering black dress, appeared on the stage. Cave gestured to fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis, sporting his customary prodigious beard, and introduced him to Harvey saying "there’s Warren in there". Cave and Harvey went on to sing ‘Henry Lee’, accompanied by Ellis and Martin Casey on bass.
The two hour event saw Cave reading extracts from his new novel, accompanied by sound from Ellis and visuals by the artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Although the book has had something of a shoeing from various critics, it strangely worked a lot better in the literary reading setting, Cave’s vocal delivery lifting his words from the coarse black and white – after all, if you read some of his lyrics set down on paper they don’t quite work as well as with the musical accompaniment.
Cave performed three readings, refusing an audience request that he finish the evening with another saying "I read a whole lot of the fucking thing, with projections…. go and see Will Self in the back of Waterstones."
Fans got value for money, though, as Cave, Ellis and Casey played versions of an impressive setlist of the Bad Seeds back catalogue. Best of all were noisier tracks rearranged for the trio set up (especially Grinderman’s ‘Grinderman’) though much of the set was drawn from the later, more reflective piano-led Bad Seeds albums.
Setlist below, but after all that what you really want to know is the answer to the reason why Nick Cave no longer sports that moustache: "My wife found my stash of rohypnol, drugged me and shaved it off"
An Evening With Nick Cave set list:
‘West Country Girl’
‘Hold Onto Yourself’
‘Lime Tree Arbour’
‘Mercy Seat’
‘God Is In The House’
‘Tupelo’
‘The Weeping Song’
‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!’
[one of the piano ones that are a bit dull]
‘Henry Lee’ (ft. PJ Harvey)
‘Do You Love Me’ (rent boy version)
‘Baby, You Turn Me On’
‘Grinderman’
‘Into My Arms’
‘Lucy’
