Gig played on 25/08/05

Somewhere, very far away, amid a large and expensive band of brothers and sisters, a gesticulating stick figure with a hellhound voice and an impeccable suit is wringing his "Red Right Hand". In the unlikely event he's got anything written on it - "Make Trade Fair", say, or "Exodus 21:24" - nobody here will be any the wiser.

Nevertheless, even half a mile back in Ally Pally, you can still feel the quality, as thirtysomethings nod reflectively, do those weird Salome dances, or pull quietly on plastic bottles of beer. All these years on, Mr Cave is still intoning black menace about abortionists, crooked judges and butchers in the likes of "Hiding All Away", leaving the mid-career aberration of sublime vulnerability that was "The Boatman's Call" conspicuous by its absence. (More's the pity.)

But as befits Cave's literary bourgeois papa prime, the screeing, hammering thrust of what are frequently full-frontal assaults rather than songs, has moved upmarket into a string-sectioned, multiple-backing-vocalist postcode. And they're all the better for it. When the ladies at the back intone "THERE IS A WAR COMING!" in rising-panic soul-for-the-damned perfection, it's like some turbo-driven "Gimme Shelter" - the satanic secret touchstone for gothdom - elevated to shock and awesomeness.

The word tonight is big. And bad, of course, as in the redoubtable and choreographed Seeds and the Biblical preoccupations, but mostly big. "Messiah Ward"; a showstopper in swelling piano and "bringing out the dead" apocalyptica. "The Ship Song" - mock-chummily introduced as "a song about ships and bridges and history and sh*t" - a beautifully hymnal glide through the Leonard Cohen streak at the heart of his best work.

At moments, the thrill lies in seeing our anti-hero walk his famous line between grand guignol and Hammer hokiness: here comes "Tupelo", trailing windmill-armed demagoguery and Jack The Ripper schtick about preachers and things going bump in the night. Give him credit: many have eyed-up the Big Rock Book Of Scariness, and some even with dictionaries, but nobody else does it with such lean, brutal command. And karate kicks. Certainly nobody, then or now, does it with the imperious Euro-elegance that Cave has grown into.

Aside from the true-heart heft of "The Boatman's Call", there's nothing this great big show doesn't deliver. "Deanna", all wildly collapsing middle and nasty spine-rattling groove. The sawing violin and stately pace of "O Children". "The Mercy Seat", a reliable highlight, raining down utter mayhem. A smartly delivered encore's highlights offer a twist on murder via the character assassinations beloved of the literary man: a half-spoken "Darker With The Day" with its lip-curled cast of "amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones" and a limpid "Abbatoir Blues" with its knowingly bathetic "I woke up with a Frappucino in my hand", like some Amis or de Botton in their wildest dreams of venomous cool.

Before a stripped-down "Stagger Lee" chalks-up a last few fatalities, and the nodding faithful absorb the last few notes and beer.

by Jennifer Nine