Live Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds bring power and emotion to Birmingham's BP Pulse Live arena

The 67-year-old Australian singer and pianist is truly one of music’s iconic greats, having led his band for more than 40 years.

Over the course of 21 songs in Birmingham, he again proved why he’s held with such acclaim by his fans and by fellow musicians.

With The Bad Seeds, Cave’s music can shift between explosive chaotic rock, stripped back slow piano led ballads and everything in between.

In Birmingham, Cave had the audience in the palm of his hand all night.

And, while an avowed opponent of organised religion, his lyrics brought a distinct religious feel to the evening with songs tackling themes of spirituality, God and death.

Cave walked on stage after The Bad Seeds took their respective places, opening with Frogs from their 18th studio album which was released earlier this year.

From the very first song, Cave – dressed in his familiar attire of a black suit, shirt and tie – left the main stage, walking out onto a specially constructed walkway in front of fans, striding along its length – reaching out to fans.

He introduced ‘O Children’ from 2004’s ‘Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus’ album by talking about how he wrote the song after watching his own children in a playground and how he felt that things in the world have only gotten worse.

One of the early highlights of the night was ‘Jubilee Street’ – a song about the murder of a sex-worker – which despite its morbid subject matter brought the crowd to its feet as it reached its raucous conclusion.

‘Tupelo’, from the band’s second album displayed their early roots in Delta Blues.

While on the surface it’s obvious the song is about the birth of Elvis Presley, there is an eerie religious analogy within and it was hard to shake off the vision of Cave as an evangelical preacher at a revival in the deep south, shouting about the King being born as the crowd at the front held their hands out to him.

Cave also displayed his softer side, playing ‘I Need You’ unaccompanied on the piano yet still managing to fill the huge space with the strength of his voice.

As expected, ‘Red Right Hand’ was met with huge applause due to its connections with Birmingham.

Now known for being the theme to Peaky Blinders, the song is one of the most accessible of his back catalogue and easily a crowd favourite.

Although Cave was the focal point for most of the night, his band the Bad Seeds were on stunning form – longtime collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis deserving particular praise.

Whether it was on violin, synthesizers or any other of the plethora of instruments he had at his disposal - Ellis was able to bring chaos or calm to proceedings, whether it was sat or stood on a chair, arms flailing into the air.

For this tour, the Bad Seeds also featured Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass.

The band left the stage to White Elephant - a slow burning, menacing track built around Cave delivering its lyrics more as spoken word than singing.

Then, as it broke into its finale, The Bad Seeds backing singers who had been perched aloft at the back of the stage for the majority of the night, walked down to join Cave – who unsurprisingly was back out among fans at the front.

When he returned for an encore, Cave ranted about costly curfew restrictions which saw one song cut from the set.

However, the crowd reaction to ‘The Weeping Song’ and ‘Into My Arms’ proved no-one seemed to mind.

Support band Black Country, New Road offered a newer sound to warm up the crowd.

Losing their lead singer in the immediate leadup to launching their second album could have been catastrophic for them, but it has allowed the trio of Tyler Hyde, Georgia Elleray and May Kershaw to step up to lead vocal duties with excellent results.

There was an air of disappointment when Cave hinted during tonight’s gig this may be his final tour.

Anyone lucky enough to have seen the frontman live in recent years will be sincerely hoping this isn’t the end and that he comes back to Birmingham again in the future.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds played:

Frogs

Wild God

Song of the Lake

O Children

Jubilee Street

From Her to Eternity

Long Dark Night

Cinnamon Horses

Tupelo

Conversion

Bright Horses

Joy

I Need You

Carnage

Final Rescue Attempt

Red Right Hand

The Mercy Seat

White Elephant

Papa Won’t Leave you Henry

The Weeping Song

Into My Arms