Nick Cave & Warren Ellis review - a sacred experience for the true believers at the Civic Theatre

Across Nick Cave's decorated 45-year career darkness, intensity and emotional turmoil have been his calling cards.

One of his first Newcastle shows in the early '80s as the crazed frontman of punk band The Birthday Party ended with the old Norths Leagues Club in Tighes Hill being closed for a month after fans destroyed the toilets in a drug-fuelled mania.

Wednesday night's show with long-time Bad Seeds collaborator Warren Ellis couldn't have been more different. The sold-out audience came to respectfully listen. They came to experience something sacred.

Cave and Ellis, aren't simply musicians. They're performance artists.

Cave and The Bad Seeds delivered a powerful performance at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre in January 2017, but the Civic Theatre was on another level in terms of intimacy.

After opening with the emotionally-dense Spinning Song from 2019 album Ghosteen, Cave greeted the audience with "good evening Castlemaine."

Several seconds later he realised his mistake. "Please forgive me, Newcastle. I'm f--king old," the 65-year-old joked.

The sold-out Newcastle audience laughed along. If anything, the slip broke the ice. It allowed the crowd to infiltrate Ellis' minimalist and ambient electronic soundscapes and Cave's grieving lyrics written in the aftermath of his 15-year-old son Arthur's tragic death in 2015.

Cave was in a playful mood. He constantly engaged with fans.

"This is a distressing song," Cave said while introducing Hollywood.

"Another one, hey?" chirped someone in the front row.

"It's kind of what I do," Cave responded cheekily.

Elsewhere he responded to a woman whom he'd met that day and blessed her baby. "That's what I do - funerals and blessings."

The near three-hour set was dominated by Ghosteen and Cave and Ellis' Carnage album, released last year.

White Elephant was a blistering highlight. Cave transformed himself into a mad and frothing white supremacist barking into the microphone over a swaying rhythm created by Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood and drummer Larry Mullins, before the track exploded into a howling gospel.

Cave's mantra of "just breathe, just breathe" on the heart-breaking I Need You offered an unvarnished window into a father's grief.

Amid the gloom there were shades of light. Breathless was a joyful moment with Ellis' melodic flute bringing punters to the front to dance, and it even inspired what Cave described jokingly as "the worst stage invasion I've ever seen."

For pure theatrics Hand Of God was magnificent. Ellis' throbbing synths created the tension before Cave stepped into the crowd like a southern preacher pressing the flesh with a faithful congregation, who chanted "hand of God" as if in a trance.

Many thought the pandemic would have eliminated this sort of audience interaction, but human touch and connection have seemingly grown more essential to Cave.

At times the minimalist soundscapes tested the audience's endurance, and as a reward, Cave dived into old favourites in the encore like The Weeping Song and Henry Lee, featuring vocalist Janet Ramus.

The Ship Song was surprise inclusion, following a request, and Novocastrians were given a second encore of Into My Arms, decided on the fly.

Perhaps it was his way of apologising for calling us "Castlemaine." He need not have worried. Forgiveness, and love, was in overwhelming supply.