Of late, the signs have suggested that Nick Cave has deserted rock'n'roll for more erudite, reflective pastures. Where once he embodied the stereotype of a dissolute artist, holed up in a Berlin garret and writing songs out of necessity, now he has an office to work in from nine to five. Instead of violence and debauchery, there are lectures on the love song and scholarly treatises on the New Testament.
Has the fire really gone out? At the merchandise stall on this third night at the Brixton Academy, they're selling kagoules, of all things, branded with his name. No more long nights of purgative rumination in the rain for this lot, evidently. So far, so sensibly attired and middle-aged.
Then, of course, the gig starts, and all those tidy preconceptions are blasted to oblivion. There is an undeniable intellectual edge to Cave these days, in the way he tests the limits of information a song can contain on his recent, very fine 'No More Shall We Part'. But what's remarkable here is how the trappings of rock'n'roll showmanship - the very theatrics you'd imagine he'd find unutterably vulgar now - are still so enthusiastically embraced. Put simply, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds remain one of the most raggedly exhilarating live experiences in the world.
As Cave compels his stellar band to ever more intense crescendos during 'Oh My Lord', the weird thought occurs that this melodramatically stern conductor, this paragon of rage and soul and twisted religious belief, this man with a tight suit and a slick of black hair, is rather like James Brown these days. He's gonna do his thing, basically, though to be fair Cave has a keen sense of self-parody as well as moral fervour. 'Hallelujah' sees him take the role of a decrepit geriatric whose nurse is on holiday, whilst 'God Is In The House' describes a town pacified by religious conservatism. These stories are Cave's preferred mode of writing currently: the open-heart confessionals of his last album, 'The Boatman's Call' are largely ignored here.
Instead, the new epics are augmented by a selection of turbulent masterpieces - a rattling 'Papa Won't Leave You, Henry', a consolatory croon through 'The Ship Song', a frankly momentous version of 'The Mercy Seat'. Cave is compulsive, but the seven-man Bad Seeds are always a bewitching distraction, especially fiddler Warren Ellis, spinning in circles, high kicking, tangled up in his violin lead.
By the end, Cave has briefly morphed into Nina Simone for the smoked piano blues of 'And No More Shall We Part', then brought a roadie on with a pile of cue cards to help him through the countless roistering verses of 'The Curse Of Millhaven'. He may not talk it like he walks it any more, but it's clear Nick Cave still has the moves, the fire, the crazed passion to perform. A revelation.
