#nick-cave

#nick-cave

Dragging his hand across the piano keys, Nick Cave leaps into the air and charges towards the crowd like a preacher breaking from the pulpit. Bring your spirit down! he cries repeatedly, arms flung wide as the choir roars behind him. It's barely 10 minutes into their set at Fremantle Park in Perth, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds have the audience in the palm of their hands.

Devouring the new Nick Cave documentary on Sky, I am reminded how critics go wild for arty musicians who constantly change direction and dabble in everything. This is its own kind of myth. I know plenty of artists who keep moving one week they're sewing fish scales on to jackets, the next they're painting mirrors or putting seahorses in samovars. The problem is, no one cares.

Nick Cave's determination to hold a space for public discourse on life’s deep, difficult, and mysterious elements is a significant reason I admire him.