Music

Nick Cave, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Keith Bruce

five stars

The other Man in Black, as lithe and limb-tastic as ever, strides onstage after his current touring quartet, salutes the crowd - and immediately paces off into the wings again, missing the cue-card for his first song. Returning swiftly with the excuse that it is the first date of the tour, that casual start is emblematic of an evening that oozes charm, and introduces a version of the Australian musician/writer/film-maker that is quite different from the intensity of a Bad Seeds performance, or the power of a Grinderman gig, although elements of both are present.

This Nick Cave is a dark cabaret that runs from 1994's Red Right Hand to 2013's Higgs Bosun Blues on a stage heavy with ruched dark velvet drapery from which little hanging firefly lights stretch out into the auditorium. This Nick Cave sits on the edge of the stage and selects a pretty girl from the front row to feel the beating of his heart. When he is not engaging with the audience, he is seated at the grand piano, and solo readings of The Ship Song and The Mercy Seat a particular show highlights. However, this group of Martyn Casey (bass), Thomas Wydler (drums) and Barry Adamson (keyboards) with the hirsute Warren Ellis adding dramatic guitar, fiddle and tubular bell stage right is a wonderfully flexible unit, changing tonal colour for every shade of this chameleon Cave. He riffs on a phrase like Alan Vega of Suicide, sings the blues like a Jim Morrison that did not go paunchy and croons like pre-bland Bryan Ferry. An encore singalong of God is the House is witness to the devotion of packed house.

Nick Cave plays Edinburgh Playhouse tonight