Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and Madrugada
After not having been to any concert whatsoever in quite a long time, I went to 2 concerts in one week! One was already planned: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at the Heineken Music Hall last Monday, and one was a spur of the moment thing after having overheard 2 people talk during the Nick Cave gig. As you might know, one of my favourite Norwegian rockbands is Madrugada. Somehow I thought they had already played a gig in Amsterdam, and I missed it, but hearing someone say: "And we are going to see Madrugada at Paradiso on Friday" (well, actually, I only heard "Madrugada", "Paradiso" and "Friday") gave me hope. So on tuesday, at work, I checked the Paradiso site to find it was not yet sold out, which made me a very happy girl! The fact that their latest album Madrugada is frequently compared to Nick Cave made Sean happy to accompany me.
Nick Cave was absolutely amazing! He's 50-something now, but has the energy and intensity of a 20-something year old. I was truly amazed. He sounds better live than on his albums :) He played many new songs (of course) but also quite a few old-time favourites as The Ship Song, Red Right Hand and Stagger Lee.
Friday we went to Paradiso, I have to admit that I had never been there before. I also have to admit that I had never ever seen Madrugada live before (they played in Oslo right after I returned to the Netherlands...). Paradiso is beautiful, nice and small. It was great to finally see Madrugada perform live. This may be their last tour, after the tragic death of their guitarist last year. Luckily the album was already finished and they released it last January. I don't know what will happen next, especially since the lead singer, Sivert Høyem, recorded 2 solo albums a few years ago. Well, we'll see, at least I am very happy that I managed to see them live :) Sean also really enjoyed their music, luckily. He agreed that some of their songs do remind him of Nick Cave. Personally I loved their performance of Strange Colour Blue, but that may be because that was the very first song I ever heard from them, and New Woman/New Man, one of their new songs. Sean especially liked Blood Shot Adult Commitment, one of their older, louder songs, and Black Mambo, Look Away Lucifer (the new single) and Honey Bee. Since they were in Amsterdam, they told us that they thought it would be very deep and profound if they played the Jacques Brel song about Amsterdam :) Read a great review here.
