Nick Cave at the Town Hall

Nick Cave was born in Warracknabeal, a small country town in the Australian state of Victoria. When he was a child, his family moved to Wangaratta in rural Victoria. There, at nine years of age, he joined the cathedral choir. A few years later, he moved with his family to the Melbourne suburb of Murrumbeena. There, in 1973, Cave founded a band and sang cover songs. By 1977, the band members were writing and performing original songs, and enjoyed regional popularity as the Boys Next Door. In 1980, pursuing grander success, the band became the Birthday Party and relocated to London, England, then West Berlin, Germany. The Birthday Party drew a following but disbanded in 1983, and Cave formed Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Cave also has written a libretto for an opera, novels, screenplays, and movie soundtracks, and has acted in a few films. Cave was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007, and named an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 17th studio album, Ghosteen, will be released on October 3, 2019. He currently is based in Los Angeles, California.

Nick Cave's latest project has been Conversations with Nick Cave, a tour in which Cave performs solo on piano and fields questions from the audience. At the Town Hall tonight, he intermittently performed songs from his catalogue and responded to unscreened and unfiltered questions. With music sheets arrayed on the piano and a nearby table, Cave's selections of songs seem whimsical in some cases, while others were responses to audience requests. Barren arrangements spotlighted Cave's rich baritone and emotional intensity on his compositions inspired by love, death, violence and religion. The audience came for more than music, however, and given a microphone, fans gushed over their admiration of Cave; some asked questions about his music and, perhaps given the bleakness of his works, a great many seemed to seek his solace in coping with grief, a recurring theme. In many of his responses, Cave emphasized his positive and optimistic outlook. "Happiness is an act of defiance," he said. At the end of the two-hour program, however, the audience was left to connect the dots as to how the upbeat person he projected authored such dark, brooding music.

Setlist:

1. The Ship Song (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
2. The Weeping Song (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
3. God Is in the House (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
4. Shivers (The Boys Next Door song)
5. Into My Arms (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
6. Far from Me (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
7. Girl in Amber (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
8. The Mercy Seat (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
9. Avalanche (Leonard Cohen cover)
10. Devil Town (Daniel Johnston cover)
11. Jubilee Street (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
12. Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)
13. Palaces of Montezuma (Grinderman song)
14. Love Letter (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)

Encore:

1. Stagger Lee (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song)