Nick Cave emotionally dedicated a song to the “bright flame” of Anita Lane at London’s The O2 on Saturday (09.11.24).
The 67-year-old singer paid tribute to his former Birthday Party bandmate and Bad Seeds pianist – who died in 2021 at the age of 61 – during the second Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show at the venue, by pointedly performing ‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’ in her memory.
And that wasn’t the only emotional moment of the evening as the Australian singer appeared tearful as he sang stripped-down versions of ‘I Need You’ and ‘Into My Arms’ while the crowd sang along.
By contrast, Nick also showed his lighter side by poking fun at Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood, who is playing bass on the tour in the absence of Martyn Casey.
Pointing to a fan on the front row, the singer highlighted they were wearing a “hideous Radiohead sweatshirt”.
He added: “What’s worse is you have a Björk t-shirt on underneath. That adds insult to injury”.
As he and his bandmates laughed, Nick said: “We love them both. Isn’t that right Colin? We stole Colin.”
And later in the set, the singer had another jibe to throw the way of his touring bandmate.
Singing ‘Red Right Hand’, he again looked over at the hoodie-wearing fan and changed the lyrics to: “You want another s***** T-shirt? He’ll get you one.”
Highlights from the two-and-a-half hour set included a number of tracks from latest album ‘Wild God’, ‘O Children’, the title song from lockdown album ‘Carnage’, and ‘White Elephant’.
Earlier this year, Colin admitted he had been having a “blast” performing with Nick and his band.
He told NME: “It’s an awesome group of people to play music with.
“They’re brilliant and with ferociously loud drummers; what a team. For me, it’s a really fun thing to do because it’s not Radiohead. There are a lot of different colours in the music, so I’m having a blast.
“[Nick] is such a great story-teller, and I really love his piano-playing.
“When I took the rough recordings from the new album home to listen to and heard his voice fill up my front room, I thought, ‘What a voice! He’s got the lot!’”