Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

God Is in the House DVD (Mute)
by Lex Marburger

For those of you who don’t know, the legacy of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds spans two decades. In that time, Nick has been a junkie, a poet, a movie star (well, maybe “star” is a bit over the top, but he was one of the best things in Johnny Suede), but above all, a man who can shape pain into beautiful music. God Is in the House, an ambitious name for a live DVD notwithstanding, is testament of the Seed’s power, captured live in concert in France on the No More Shall We Part tour in 2001. They play songs from eight of their twelve albums, including “Do You Love Me?,” “The Weeping Song,” “Saint Huck,” “Red Right Hand,” “Lime Tree Arbor,” and “The Curse of Millhaven.” And they rock. In addition to the standard lineup of Nick, Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Conway Savage, et.al., new Cave boyfriend (I know, Nick is married, I mean musically, dummy) Warren Ellis shows up with his violin, signaling what came to be the departure of Blixa from the band a few years later (I guess you can only have one shrieking noisemaker in a band at any one time). After all this time, the Seeds still put on a powerful show, the complex arrangements pulled off flawlessly, with Nick as the consummate frontman, leading both the band and the crowd through a dense set of human emotion. Included on the DVD are videos for “As I Sat Sadly By Her Side,” “Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow,” “Love Letter,” and a documentary of the No More Shall We Part album sessions.
(www.mute.com)