Colin Greenwood plays Nick Cave's first concerts in Bulgaria

Colin Greenwood was beside Nick Cave at the Ancient Theatre in Plovdiv on 19 August, and is again tonight, 20 August, for the first concerts Cave has ever played in Bulgaria. When people shouted for songs on the first night, Cave answered for the two of them. We're professionals. We know what we're doing.⁵

The August leg, which followed the French nights, began at Grieghallen in Bergen, with Cave at a Steinway grand and Greenwood on a Fender Precision bass equalised to sound almost like a double bass. Tor Harald Rødseth of Musikknyheter.no found Greenwood always in exactly the place each arrangement needed, and rated Cave at least as strong stripped down as with the full band in 2018. The audience let the piano ring out before applauding, then applauded for minutes.

Both nights in the castle ruins at Sigulda in Latvia sold out, to people from Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Poland and further. Aiga Leitholde of LSM picked out Greenwood's bass in “Tupelo”, Cave's song about Elvis Presley's birth in a storm. Cave dedicated “Galleon Ship” to his wife and told the crowd the bare truth of a song can get lost in the drama of the Bad Seeds.

The main set is now a fixed 18 songs, with four to six encores that change from night to night. Before the second Sigulda night Cave said the setlist would match the first. The order changed anyway, and the encore brought back four songs not played for a long time: “Shivers”, “Sad Waters”, “He Wants You” and “Carnage”.

In Plovdiv the audience was on its feet before the first night began, and a woman handed Cave a rose that stayed on the piano all evening. Anton Birov of Webcafe.bg found Greenwood modest and very exact. The night ran to 23 songs and about two and a half hours, from “Girl in Amber” to “Into My Arms”, sung by several thousand people in the theatre.

The August nights