Venue: The Forum Theatre
Date: 14th October 2007
Reviewed By: Lyn. Photographs by Mark Geisel.
We arrived at the Forum Theatre very early for a Sunday night to watch some of Australia ’s legendary musicians. Down we waltzed to stand near the front and very soon the masses followed suit. It wasn’t long after 8pm when Grinderman took to stage.
First entered Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos. Looking at these men, I almost thought I’d turned up to a ZZ top concert by mistake! All supported very long hairy beards and one punter commented that the band were wearing ‘f#$k off beards’! Lead singer Nick Cave entered not long after to thunderous applause.
Straight into ‘Depth Charge Ethel’ which was sung with high leg kicks from Nick. The sound for the first few minutes wasn’t the best but didn’t take long to sort that out.
Drummer Jim wore a pink suit which he got away with wearing rather well. Guitarist Martyn, with his cowboy hat, had a solemn expression each time I was watching him! Warren played violin, shakers, cymbals and more, always a gutsy performance by this man - one cannot help but watch Warren play the violin and be magically entwined with it. The setlist included 'Get It On', 'Electric Alice', 'Honey Bee', 'Set Me Free' and title track ‘Grinderman’ which was the highlight for me. The song ‘No Pussy Blues’ sent the crowd into a frenzy, maybe a lot of men can relate to Nick on this one! The show was a great performance for their first tour of Australia, and a great debut album to match.
I didn’t get a chance to come down from the performance of Grinderman as Nick Cave, Jim Sclavunos, Martyn Casey and Warren Ellis took to stage again.
Who can go to a concert and see the lead band supporting themselves in a different outfit! With a couple of wardrobe changes and maybe a quick deodorant spray or towel wipe and there they all were on stage again. Nick played the piano for many songs and to the dismay of the crowds around me, a music stand in front of us disrupted our view, which was rather annoying. So I moved back and had a much more comfortable view of Nick on piano as well as the rest of the band.
‘Love Letter’ opened the show which had the audience swaying, other favourites followed: 'Red Right Hand', 'Cannibals Hymn', 'Deanna', 'Weeping Song', 'Ship Song', 'Henry Lee', 'Mercy Seat', 'Tupelo', and 'Christina the Astonishing', which pleased the crowd. Warren again showing so much passion for his violin. The only low point was having disrupted view - so not really much of a low point. The stage was simple yet effective, sound was fantastic, and lighting was beautiful with many colours matching the songs. The night ended with one grunty edgy song called 'Jack the Ripper'. Nick even shook hands with front row fans to their utter delight.
So many more songs left off the list but really, can Nick play all night. We can only dream of the possibility. Nick and co proved they have still got what it takes to sell out the Forum for 5 nights, and Nick still has a voice glistening with musical notes.
