Nick Cave, Royal Albert Hall, London - review

In last year's rock doc 20,000 Days on Earth , a psychoanalyst asks Nick Cave what he fears most. The 57-year-old's answer - "that I'm not going to be able to continue to do what I do" - might explain his prolific output over the past few years, across music, film and publishing. Lest the devil (who inspires enough of Cave's material as it is) find work for idle hands, he is now back on the road for a solo tour.

For a while it seemed that an elegiac tone was going to dominate Sunday's show. A haunting violin intro to "Water's Edge", from 2013's Push the Sky Away , set the pace for an evening heavy on ballads, some accompanied only by Cave's piano and the melancholy etched into his face. But just when rock's favourite doomster was in danger of looking tamed, an image of Lucifer with "a hundred black babies runnin' from his genocidal jaw" in "Higgs Boson Blues" broke the spell.

Even while rooted to his seat Cave was in his best preacher-man form, the piano his pulpit. He may not have roused the congregation to its feet but every Cave gig simmers with a volcanic energy that must, at some point, erupt. For "The Mercy Seat" - the biblically charged last words of a man facing the electric chair - Cave was alone with his piano, the song's steady meter building to key-pounding climax, and closing with the softest of outros.

Cave's darkness demands lighter moments: what looked like a kindergarten xylophone was produced for "Up Jumped the Devil", and his obvious frustration with the setting ("If you want to shout stuff out, you're probably allowed") drove him 10 rows into the audience in search of interaction.

Above all, the evening was a showcase for the musicianship that Cave has been nurturing for four decades. Bad Seed Warren Ellis was less part of the backing band than Cave's stage spouse, sharing front of stage. The singer seemed as captivated as the rest of us by Ellis's ability to switch from violently virtuoso violinist to fluttering flautist and back again. The three other backers contributed to an impressive avalanche of sound; "From Her to Eternity" put drummer Thomas Wydler through his paces to thundering effect. Cave's usual histrionics may have been diminished but at this show, the sound was the thing.

nickcave.com

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