Live review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Glasgow’s Ovo Hydro

Wild God, a No 2 hit following its release at the end of August, might not seem to be obvious arena material, some of its songs being seemingly slight, others wilfully abstract, melodies flitting in and out and singalong choruses and what used to be lighters-in-the-air moments being conspicuous by their absence.

Cave was confident it would translate to the stage well, however, declaring, when announcing back in March the tour that brought him to Glasgow’s Ovo Hydro on Sunday: “I think we can really do something epic with these songs live.

“We’re really excited about that – the record just feels like it was made for the stage.”

He wasn’t wrong either. Eight of the ten songs making up his latest album with the Bad Seeds, their 18th, were included in a setlist stretching past two-and-a-quarter hours, starting off with three in a row – Frogs, the title track and Song of the Lake – and none, despite their relative unfamiliarity, tested the patience of an audience not far short of the Hydro’s 14,000-plus capacity, thanks to the 67-year-old’s committed delivery, now adding, due to his relatively-recent reinvention as an agony aunt, a touchy-feely dimension to what often used to be characterised as a hellfire preacher demeanour, like a potty-mouthed Billy Graham, and the almost-evangelical uplift provided by four backing singers, expanding the Seeds’ line-up into double figures.

If anyone had managed to smuggle the proverbial pin past the enthusiastic, metal detector-wielding security staff on the doors but then carelessly dropped it once inside, its contact with the floor might well have been audible at points.

Those points wouldn’t have included any during his 21-song set’s six selections from his pre-millennium back catalogue, though – 1984’s From Her to Eternity, the year after’s Tupelo, 1988’s The Mercy Seat, 1990’s The Weeping Song, 1992’s Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry, 1994’s Red Right Hand and, delivered solo as the last of three encores, 1997’s Into My Arms, all having stood the test of time and then some.

Red Right Hand’s additional familiarity courtesy of the Scream horror movies and Peaky Blinders TV series have turned it into one of Cave’s best-known songs and a live favourite and the same goes for 2004’s O Children, introduced to many members of a much-expanded fan-base over recent years via the soundtrack to the first Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows film in 2010 and now imbued with extra pathos following the deaths of two of Cave’s sons in 2015 and 2022, bereavements alluded to in his introduction to the song on Sunday.

Cave’s tour continues to Manchester tonight, November 5; Cardiff tomorrow and London’s O2 on Friday and Saturday.

For further details, go to …

https://www.nickcave.com/tour-dates/