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Live Seeds

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Live Seeds Audio CD

A fair review of the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds "Live Seeds" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds reviews here, or go back to the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds tabs.

Band: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Title: Live Seeds
Rating:

Release Date: 1997-02-11
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Mercy Seat 2: Deanna 3: Ship Song 4: Papa Won't Leave You, Henry 5: Plain Gold Ring 6: John Finn's Wife 7: Tupelo 8: Brother, My Cup Is Empty 9: Weeping Song 10: Jack the Ripper 11: Good Son 12: From Her to Eternity 13: New Morning

Excellent, High Voltage Introduction to the early Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
There is massive energy on this record. This is an excellent introduction to early hits of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. 16 people have reviewed this record before me. 16 people have given it five stars. I am not one to dissent from their conclusions. There is so much to say and write about this music. So much is said in the 16 reviews before me. I endorse and co-sign much of what was already said about this record and will not repeat it. But my own additional comment is this: much criticism was leveled at Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for doing The Good Son - a record that was a significant departure from his mid-1980s work. Some had said there were actually two bands - the NCBS of Tender Prey, First Born is Dead, Your Funeral My Trial - and the NCBS of The Good Son. I think this live record effectively refutes that criticism. There is a lot of very good material on The Good Son, some of which is presented live on this record. Hearing those songs live, in the context of many earlier tracks, serves to reinforce that the material on The Good Son is powerful stuff, and it is clear that The Good Son fits rather nicely into the discography of NCBS when it is all viewed in context.

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Put Nick and his bratpack The Bad Seeds on the stage where they belong
With the release of this album, "The birthday Party live 81-81", as with the live dvd "Pleasure heads must burn", Nick Cave showed he was much more than just a singer; he was a performer, shocking, arresting, preaching, screaming, howling, even menacing. I wrote the same thing about the live CD of Nick Cave's early band, the punk act The Birthday Party. . . but always moving.

After the early demise of TBP Nick came back in the early eighties with his ensemble The Bad Seeds. First with some experimental albums like "From her to eternity" and the more than wonderful "The Firstborn is dead", then some crossovers between the experimental and the more pop music orientated songs ("Your funeral. . . my trial" and "Tender prey") and then the real polished, mainly matured LP's like "The Good son" and "Henry's dream".
But even the polished, pop orientated albums are always full of surprises, off beat musical structures, dark, oppressing moods and filled with Oldtestament-like preachings.

Now there is the first official live cd "Live Seeds" and it's a smasher. It takes guts to open with the song "The mercy seat", (for theatrical performance a little abridged - the original lasts about seven abrasive minutes) because you have to be a real artist to top such a sheer musical rumpunch of genius.
But Nick Cave just proceeds like a howling blind man, with such rock songs as "Deanna", "Papa won't leave you, Henry", the apocalyptic "Tupelo", "Brother my cup is empty", "Jack the Ripper", that other Biblical thunder: "The Good son" and of course "From her to eternity".

In between are some moments of contemplation with ballads like "The Ship song", "Plain gold ring" and "New morning".
With the exception of some truely great songs, Nick Cave's weak point is the ballad - like I said, he can be great but most of the time, his slower songs don't really stick, they don't eat away our memories, they don't devour us, not like the stage-smashing rock pieces do.

But this album rocks, it stuns. It devours.
And when it leaves you gasping for more, try the two live dvd's "The Road to God knows where / Live at the Paradiso" and "God is in the house" - and you'll come to the same conclusion as me, graphicly mentioned above: put The Nick and his topnotch musical ensemble of the Bad Seeds on a stage, where they belong.

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Perhaps the best introduction to Nick
One of Nick's many mighty virtues is his flair for performance, and this album showcases him and the Bad Seeds clearly at the height of their powers -- not to say those powers have diminished. Like your traditional "live" album, this is a collection of some highlights from several albums, rendered IMO perhaps better than the original versions.

I can go on and on about Nick and his abilities as a singer, a performer, or slightly less known, as a scholar of English-Lauguage folk music, but this album really demonstrates that wonderfully. OK, just one remark: I believe "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry," originally from "Henry's Dream," is in great part inspired from a much older English song, "Tom of Bedlam. " For any Nick enthusisast who isn't aware of his bardic side, it might gladden your heart to study the original and to discover more of the history that Nick is so well-versed (literally) in. I was originally thrilled to see a pal of mine, a massive scholar of English music, play this song at a coffee house one evening. To my mind, Nick is a great scholar of folk music, and a genuine great performer of our time. It is the darkness he dwells upon that has obscured him from broader acceptance, of course.

So let me just give wholehearted approval and not go on for too long. Five stars. .

Bringing the Hammer Down
This CD is more convincing though because you can feel the band is really engaged and you feel that you are being sung to directly as a person. I have enjoyed all of Nick Cave's work with his penchant for acting , drama, and the doggerel lives of the backwaters, the crooked, the low life characters that convince us of the rawness of life and the band's story telling ability. There are few instances in life, even in a live set, where we the audience become we the experience. The songs connect and take you into the rhapsodic balladic stories. This is grand rock and roll, people, it's just wailing and bringing the hammer down.

Matthew Hahn, www. movingtracks. com.

I wish Cave's live shows were really like this...
I had the opportunity to see Nick Cave in San Francisco recently, and I came away somewhat disappointed. This is a terrific album, with a lot of great songs played passionately and with conviction. Perhaps Nick is the sort of musician who's determined to never repeat himself, and therefore makes an effort to make each and every show different from the last. Unfortunately, he played very little of the material presented here. Most notably, he passed up "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry", and "The Ship Song", which are my favorites on this album. "Deanna", and "The Mercy Seat" also contribute nicely to this riveting live album.

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