Nick Cave recently spent a day in Washington, DC, first at Politics and Prose for a book event for his co-authoring of Faith, Hope, and Carnage and later at the Lincoln Theatre for a rare solo Show at the piano.
It was a day characterized by Mr. Cave’s earnest empathy for the human condition and his poetic insights into love, life, and death.
Nalinee Darmrong caught up with Nick at the Lincoln Theatre to photograph his show.
On Sept. 23, Nick Cave first appeared with award-winning journalist Seán O’Hagan in support of their best selling book Faith, Hope, and Carnage (released in paperback on Sept. 19). The book is described as “a candid dialogue rich with passionate revelation, fierce intelligence, and philosophical searching about the spiritual forces behind creativity and music.” The event sold out quite quickly!
Later that day, Nick Cave performed at the Lincoln Theatre, performing a deep run of songs from the catalog of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, accompanied by Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass. This tourdate too sold out.
Cave began the show with “Girl in Amber” from the 2016 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, Skeleton Tree. About halfway through the show, he regaled the audience with what many consider to be his signature song, “The Mercy Seat,” from the 1988 Bad Seeds album, Tender Prey.
Watch Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform “The Mercy Seat” live in Copenhagen via YouTube:
Soon after that selection, Nick Cave performed his earnest cover of “Cosmic Dancer” by T. Rex.
Ending the main set, Cave circled back to relatively newer songs including “Jubilee Street” from Push the Sky Away (2013) and that album’s title track.
A hefty encore extended the set to a total of 25 songs; the encore began with a surprise cover of “Long Black Veil” by Lefty Frizzell, which Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds recorded for their 1986 covers album, Kicking Against the Pricks. The encore also included “Palaces of Montezuma” (2011) by Cave side project Grinderman.
Nick Cave closed the night with a performance of “Stranger Than Kindness” from the 1986 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, Your Funeral… My Trial. The song lent its title to a 2020 book by Nick Cave.
All in all, Sept. 23 was an extraordinary day in DC for exploring the machinery of the soul.
Here are some photos of Nick Cave performing at the Lincoln Theatre in DC on Sept. 23, 2023. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Nalinee Darmrong.
