Colin Greenwood plays Nick Cave's first Elbphilharmonie nights

Colin Greenwood played Nick Cave's first concerts at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie on 21 and 22 June, the only other musician on stage on a tour billed as solo. The first night sold out within minutes, so the promoter, FKP Scorpio, added a second at once, and that sold out too. On 21 June people lined the bridge to the hall holding signs asking for tickets.

The tour had opened on 10 June at Theater 11 in Zurich, the first of three nights there, with 22 songs from the whole of Cave's catalogue. Rolling Stone Italia reported that the three from Wild God, the Bad Seeds' 2024 album, had never been played solo before.

In Hamburg Cave told the first night's audience that this is how he presents the songs to the Bad Seeds in the studio, before they make something monstrous out of them.¹ Dagmar Leischow, reviewing for taz, found Greenwood's bass restrained and finely judged. He sat out “The Mercy Seat”, leaving Cave alone at the piano with the song's dark rumble.

Cave fumbled the introduction to “Cinnamon Horses” twice that night and laughed it off. The tour only goes to cities they like, he said, and he called the hall an incredible place. “Avalanche”, the Leonard Cohen song in the encore, had meant everything to him as a teenager, and he finished with “Into My Arms”, the hall singing the chorus.

The second night drew 2,100 people, some of them back from the night before, and ran to 23 songs, most with a short story in front of them. “Mermaids” came into the set for the first time on the tour, according to setlist.fm, and “Watching Alice” into the encore. Cave dedicated “Balcony Man” to the upper tiers, who shouted back at every “balcony” in the words. Then he gave “The Mercy Seat”, perhaps his best song, he said, to the people on the floor, and told them to keep quiet for it.

Theater 11, Zurich, 10 June 2025: the opening night