Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — July 21, 2014 at Mahalia Jackson Theatre
July 21, 2014
Mahalia Jackson Theatre in New Orleans
New York City, Hammerstein Ballroom - Sunday July 27, 2014 (setlist, ticket stubs) I honestly don’t know how to start. The shows were all great but I’m certain I’m biased. I don’t know that I could not like anything this band does...not to mention that Nick is mesmerizing on stage. We started off the summer of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in New Orleans. We headed straight from the Forecastle Festival in Louisville to New Orleans. Not because we were trying to be all jet-set but because we bought the New Orleans tickets after we already had Forecastle scheduled and didn’t pay enough attention to the calendar. We met up with a bunch of other Atlantans in New Orleans for the show, they all made the trek down since our city seems to not be on the radar of the band. It was fun getting together with a big group like that pre and post show. As a matter of fact it was at a bar with that group after the show that our friend Shannon first suggested we that we start a blog to document the shows we attend. From there we decided to try and make it the full chronicle that we are constantly working on now. When we arrived at Mahalia Jackson Theatre we were trying to find out seats, they were AA3 & AA4. To me, I see AA on a ticket I’m thinking row 27, but not here. There is a small section in front of the permanent seating where they placed 3 temporary row of folding chairs, AA, BB & CC. We were first row, seats 3 & 4. A bit overwhelming but amazing at the same time. The setlist was of course amazing and were lucky enough to get a copy of our own. Tupelo was especially fantastic in this room. I’ll admit I was a bit shy being so close to the stage, when standing I couldn’t help but lean over the stage. I wanted to take pictures but I didn’t want to have my phone in their face so plus I was mesmerized. I’ll go back to New Orleans and see a show at Mahalia Jackson Theatre anytime. Then we headed up to Philadelphia to catch the Philly & New York shows. We stayed in downtown Philly and ubered out to the Mann Center, which was quite a way out. The Mann Center is an outdoor amphitheatre and the weather was perfect for the show. Here we were a bit further back but in classic Nick style he called for people to come down front and directed the security guards to let us pass. The mass of people all pushing for the stage could be scary in some situations but not this, it just feels like it’s supposed to be this way. The setlists for all shows had a similar vibe with a few switches here and there. The bass line from We Real Cool seemed to run forever building up the excitement in the outdoor summer evening. We did get a few pictures here as well as somehow snagging another copy of the setlist. I do have to say that the taxi ride back to our hotel after the show was the absolute scariest in my life. The guy driving was not the person on the hack license, the flew through red lights, nearly ran down pedestrians and then threatened when we tried to pay with a credit card when we arrived at the hotel, we had to get cash for him to let us out...and people wonder why I don’t like cabs. The next day we took the train up to NYC initially for just the Prospect Park show in Brooklyn but after going to that one we decided to add the Hammerstein the next night. The band was still fantastic at Prospect Park but it’s just not the environment for a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show. I’m sure it’s great if you are going to check out a band but when you want to be in the throng up front it’s not conducive...so therefore not much to say about that show. I think my favorite show of all was at Hammerstein. It was a very close second to New Orleans but there was just something electric about the crowd and the band. Setlist. We ran into a couple of people that we’d seen in PHL and Brooklyn