June 2003 Archives

His voice goes straight to my chill bone. Stipe sinks to his knees at the edge of the stage, clasping his microphone. Something in his timbre that is just right. Something in its rasp gives me the shivers. It starts at the bottom of my spine and ends at the tips of my fingers.

"Fah-yiiiiiire!"

It's not during a little known B-side, or one of their eerie ballads. It's right in the middle of one of their hits, "The One I Love". 16 years since its release they play it like it's the first time or the last.

R.E.M. have never overplayed a country, have never worn out their songs. They sound as fresh and as eager as they did when I first saw them back in 1987, not too far from tonight's Tivoli club -- the last time they played this country properly. (We don't count festival appearances, no matter how beautiful they are.)

While the band break the ice on stage, their crew congregates at the bar. Shaking hands, raising glasses, creating a unholy din that doesn't quiet down until R.E.M. start playing the first 'hit single'. 15 songs into the set 'Losing My Religion' starts and everybody looks up and cheers, then goes back to their yap yap yap.

The amps blow -- overheated, the gadgetry powering the speakers self-ejects during Maps and Legends. The band's soundman -- who we've dubbed 'not!Joe' *) -- loses his religion (groan), while the rest of the crew quickly find a fan to cool down the machinery.

The band play on regardless. Day one of the world tour and they've got their repertoire down pat. They've rehearsed an unbelievable 120 songs from their rich back catalogue. Older tunes sit nicely next to newer material as well as two new songs: "Bad Day" and "Animal", both of which sound jingly jangly and as yet unremarkable.

But the 30-something audience is hanging from the rafters, in a nice and quiet 30-something way. While outsiders might find this Dutch crowd subdued, connaisseurs know they're calm because they are listening. They're in it for the details and eagerly jump up to grasp the balled up lyrics sheets Stipe tosses into the crowd.

There are smiles all around, Stipe beams when he checks out Mills singing backing vocals. He swigs "Dutch" wine from a plastic cup and wonders out loud why he doesn't get a real glass. Behind me one smart ass mumbles: "Whatever you do, keep it away from Buck." The guitarist looks fitter than ever, relishing his job and jumping up and down like... like Peter Buck. Stipe's manic shuffle is more gainly, inimitable, strangely sexy and endearing.

The next day everything is bigger, wider in the coffin that is the Heineken Music Hall. Purpose built for gigs it has no history and no atmosphere of its own. It takes 3/4 of the duration of the show for the audience to warm up, literally.

I feel a little detached, away from the front rows, standing behind the sound desk to get a better overall view. I take in the light show, the golden glitter of the backdrops, summer in the city, royal blue and purple haze.

"Country Feedback" brings me back -- Stipe's 'favourite song we recorded' and one of mine. I sing along, without a voice, unheard, unseen, in the back, behind the desk, with an MD hanging from my belt and a heart lined with empathy:

You come to me with a bone in your hand
You come to me with your hair curled tight
You come to me with positions
You come to me with excuses
Ducked out in a row
You wear me out
You wear me out

Then we're nearing the end of the gig. Walk Unafraid, Everybody Hurts, People have the Power. With a pocket full of wisdom I make my way home.

Blissed out, worn out.

Up.

Dublin airport's bigger again, nothing like the tiny shed it was 15 years ago. As I make my way from the gate to the arrivals hall I wonder what ever happened to the plans to have Muc in the new C Terminal at the airport.

I get into a taxi and then I spot the big fat feller right there outside the building. "It's Muc!" I exclaim excitedly, "My friend made that!"

"Tell me all about it," the driver says, "everybody wants to know what it is and I don't know."

And so I tell the driver, an articulate man, the story of Kosovo, kids and three wishes and a little piggy that could.

At the end of the short journey to Artane we've discussed Dutch smoking laws, drug abuse, unemployment, the Euro and, of course, the weather. From Amsterdam to Dublin's been a drop of 10 degrees Celcius. I shiver in my summer gear.

This little piggy has come to town to see said friend perform with Interference, world famous in Ireland -- a loosely formed straggle of musicians around songwriter Fergus O'Farrell. Fergus apparently made a bundle writing songs for local heroes. He's stricken with muscular dystrophy, an illness that keeps him wheelchair-bound and away from the touring scene most of the time. He hasn't got long for the world.

In April and May his musician friends and associates gathered in West Cork to write and record songs with him. On June 6 these, and other, songs are performed at Dublin's Vicar Street.

"I wanted him to think about death," Friday says, talking about the song he and his writing partner Maurice Seezer co-authored with O'Farrell, "I asked him what his biggest fear was. And his biggest fear was having to leave his parents, who've put so much into him."

And thus "Here in your dreams" was created -- a "mini-opera", Friday says, "I wanted something that Andrea Bocelli might sing."

The song (7.30 MB mp3) twists around an as yet unfinished middle eight, shifting point of view from the here and now to the afterlife, from bereaved to deceased, from minor to major. It stands out on the night and the noisy audience is stilled for its duration.

Chills abound, the unlikely pair of Friday and Farrell make their voices work together. Gav's deep baritone set against Fergus's tenor set off again against both men's falsetto. During the make-do break in the song, Gav recites a few lines of Dylan's Death Is Not The End.

Oh, the tree of life is growing
Where the spirit never dies
And the bright light of salvation shines
In dark and empty skies

I take it all in, Miss Multitask, somehow in the space of 7 minutes managing to capture the gist of the song in my head, the images on my digital camera, the sound on my MD as well as gauging the audience's reaction. I am a one-woman databank of all facts Friday/Seezer. And in all of this sometimes I do forget to feel. I forget to "just have fun".

Fun. I'm supposed to have it but I spend the rest of my short trip looking at my mobile, checking if I've got a range. Tom, who has to put up with my morose self, buys me pizza at the Bad Ass Cafe -- a place that will survive the Apocalypse. The pizza tastes good and rips the lining off the roof my mouth.

Tom drives me up to the Northside where we get lost in 21st century suburbia. Beaumont, Coolock, Whitehall, Finglas, Phibsborough, Drum-feckin-condra. I'm still looking if I've got a range until we reach Artane, my port of call.

Oh, Dublin, fair city. Oh, trendier than thou. Once a venture into a distant past, now a trip to Euro-hell. The city I have in my head is gone forever. In the morning I flee this modern town, a flock of young Romanian mothers wielding buggies as weapons at my back. Get me out of here, quick!

"We're getting robbed," the taxi driver says on the way to Dublin Airport, "Last week in Lanzarote everything was cheap. If they can do it, why can't we?"

He's a tough one from Finglas, amused he's been called in for a ride from Artane.

"I love a Sunday dinner," he says, glancing into the rear view mirror. "We got lovely roast beef, three thick slices, mind! Five veg. Yorkshire pudding -- I love Yorkshire pudding. Roast potatoes. Boiled potatoes. For 7 Euro!"

That's a great deal, I agree, while I try not to laugh at this Irishman wanting his essentially British grub on a Spanish island.

"It was so good, we went back and had it again. We're animals when we eat."

The man's innate joy cheers me up this Sunday morning. He says he might pack it all in, move to the island and live the good life. He's a baker by trade. "I'd start a home bakery."

There's a thought.

"That muss be da biggest pig in da world."

"If he took her to bed, he'd break 'er."

"Maths was easy, Irish was broootal!"

"Too much Edam, Cazza."

"Hush now, cause I AM in bed."

"You wouldn't see that now in Amsterdam, you wouldn't."

"Mammy, lookit da floying pig!"

"Dere holidays were a noightmare, cause my Da took ill."

"Take care in the most expensive, most violent city in the world..."

"Because I'm a Dubliner."

{ impressions of Dublin, June 6-8, more text to follow }

I've lost count of the times I've seen Nick Cave live since my first time at Werchter in '89. The Fabrik in Coesfeld, various times at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, the MCV in Utrecht, on top of a hill in Lissard, the Meltdown festival in London, that awkward spoken word thing in Whelan's, Dublin...

In another time, another place I might have been a devoted fan, but as things came to pass that place was already taken. And so I buy the albums, see gigs whenever I can, read the news when I feel like it. Which by many people's standards does make me a raving lunatic afficionado.

I am not, but I'm still fimly lodged front stage between the die hards at the Heineken Music Hall. Around me I hear Italian, Swedish, Belgian, German and Mancunian. I'm looking up at the mad tall stage, second row centre, right underneath the man's mic.

Cave never really disappoints. He's Johnny Rotten and Serge Gainsbourg's love child. Touched by the hand of God, he screams murder teetering on the edge of the stage. He hurls himself around as if the Birthday Party never ended then sits himself down behind that shiny grand piano for a pretty ballad or two. Thin in his worn out suit, lank underneath receding hair still dyed jet black he is unsmiling and forever hesitating on the thin love/hate line with his audience.

He encourages to sing along, curtly admits it is 'beautiful' - not too sure himself whether to mock us or to pull us all collectively to his bony chest.

Keen to hear the new songs I'm surprised the setlist seems to focus on older - reworked - material. Both West Country Girl and Henry Lee, having lost their female protagonist, are souped up, while The Mercy Seat starts like a trickle from a tap, slowly escalating to its final crescendo.

The Bad Seeds are invincible even without Herr Bargeld. In the background facing Thomas Wydler violinist Warren Ellis communes with the devil. It is now clear to me why - as always - his back is turned to the audience. Were he to face us, he'd effortlessly steal the show. And Warren knows his place in this ensemble.

It's all about Nick.

Setlist Amsterdam June 2, 2003:

1. Wonderful Life
2. Red Right Hand
3. West Country Girl
4. Hallelujah
5. Still In Love
6. Sad Waters
7. Do You Love Me?
8. Bring It On [with Chris Bailey]
9. Christina the Astonishing
10. Watching Alice
11. The Mercy Seat
12. Nobody's Baby Now
13. From Her to Eternity
    
14. He Wants You
15. Henry Lee
16. Deanna
17. The Ship Song
    
18. Babe, I'm on Fire