All Together Now, Day 2: Nick Cave reigns supreme with sublime set
Nick Cave Performing at All Together Now on Saturday evening. Photo: Roisin Murphy O'Sullivan
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tower over day two of All Together Now, back to play Ireland for the first time in four years.
The death of a second son, in May, has added a deep emotional pallor to Cave's gigs around Europe this summer. And his shows were already emotional enough to begin with. He demands adulation, akin to Morrissey as he reaches into the crowd throughout, standing like a warrior on the barrier that he prowls all set as the nine-piece Bad Seeds look like the coolest backing band imaginable.
A two-hour-plus festival slot, it could have been easy for some of the crowd's attention to wander, but if anything, it gets more intense. 'I Need You', the only song taken off the devastating album, is played halfway through and it feels like the crowd as one held their breath transfixed.
But there's fun to be had too. Warren Ellis looks like he's having the time of his life, no more so than when the "War-ren War-ren" chants begin. He's got so much humility that man, Cave jibes. A duet with one of the backing singers, who jumps in when Cave forgets the words of the last verse, feels like a special moment for the band as much as everyone else.
During one of his forays into the front rows, someone hands him a lunchbox of ANZAC biscuits, an Australian treat that you can't get over here. Cave looks genuinely touched. And as he poses once more as the rain comes down, he asks if it looks apocalyptic. "We dig the apocalypse," he declares, wondering if it also looks cool. Of course it does. And then someone hands him a rose. What a perfect moment.
He peppers his set with a recurring motif of "boom boom boom" and "breathe breathe breathe" and returns to the line of crashing his car from I Need You and you realise just what a special performance you're watching. He's trying to exorcise the memory - "Can you feel my heart beat?" he screams. This gig feels like Cave cutting it open and putting it on display for all to see. Simply astounding.
The rest of the day and night at All Together Now, hosted at Curraghmore Estate in county Waterford, was whatever you wanted it to be. There is family fun to keep the children entertained, young people at their first festival (well it has been three years since we had a proper festival summer), and foodies absorbing all the information from the Grub Circus, curated by columnist Joe McNamee, and where the likes of Diarmuid Gavin was talking about sustainability and Darina Allen about provenance. There's space to read the newspapers, do yoga, see talks from Jim Sheridan and Emma Dabiri, or a bandstand brunch comedy show with David O'Doherty, which might be exactly what you need after the night before.
And what of the rest of the music? Again there's a spotlight on Irish acts. The Mary Wallopers are like the Pogues incarnate, a raucous trad set that builds up to their anthemic Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice. Their album, they announce, will be out in August - the Dundalk gang might well be back headlining next year.
Niamh Regan's gentle songs, as the Galway singer-songwriter floats between guitar and piano with ease, lift the spirit even as the rain plummets down, while Junior Brother and Sorcha Richardson do what they do best - write hilarious and perfect pop songs, respectively. Later, the likes of Groove Armada, Romy from the xx (DJ set), Floating Points, and Honey Dijon take whoever is left standing through to the early hours of the morning. But if all people can remember is Nick Cave's set, that's perfectly understandable.
