Customer Reviews

Live Seeds (Reis)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like your traditional "live" album, this is a collection of some highlights from several albums, rendered IMO perhaps better than the original versions. One of Nick's many mighty virtues is his flair for performance, and this album showcases him and the Bad Seeds clearly at the height of their powers -- not to say those powers have diminished.

I can go on and on about Nick and his abilities as a singer, a performer, or slightly less known, as a scholar of English-Lauguage folk music, but this album really demonstrates that wonderfully. OK, just one remark: I believe "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry," originally from "Henry's Dream," is in great part inspired from a much older English song, "Tom of Bedlam." For any Nick enthusisast who isn't aware of his bardic side, it might gladden your heart to study the original and to discover more of the history that Nick is so well-versed (literally) in. I was originally thrilled to see a pal of mine, a massive scholar of English music, play Tom of Bedlam at a coffee house one evening. I was stunned; it was Nick's song! It was clearly where Nick got it, or the greater part of it. To my mind, Nick is a great scholar of folk music, and a genuine great performer of our time. It is the darkness he dwells upon that has obscured him from broader acceptance, of course.

So let me just give wholehearted approval and not go on for too long. Five stars.

I was very fortunate to get a copy of the "Live Seeds" CD/photo book set personally autographed by Nick, Thomas Wylder, and Jim Scavulos. But even putting aside my enthusiasm for owning an item which Nick Cave held in his hands and signed his name to, I find this album to be a testament to a great man and a great band. Nick has never sounded better than he does on this album. The songs all sound very different (and often much better) when recorded at a live Cave show...particularly "The Mercy Seat," which gains momentum as it rolls along, and "Tupelo," the version of which appearing on this album is absolutely stunning. These two songs have long been favorites of mine, but more so now than ever due to the brilliance of this album. I was very lucky...but you can be lucky too. All you have to do is buy this album...you can't lose.

I have enjoyed all of Nick Cave's work with his penchant for acting , drama, and the doggerel lives of the backwaters, the crooked, the low life characters that convince us of the rawness of life and the band's story telling ability. This CD is more convincing though because you can feel the band is really engaged and you feel that you are being sung to directly as a person. There are few instances in life, even in a live set, where we the audience become we the experience. The songs connect and take you into the rhapsodic balladic stories. This is grand rock and roll, people, it's just wailing and bringing the hammer down.

Matthew Hahn, www.movingtracks.com

I usually hate live albums, but....I gotta wonder why Nick Cave ever goes into a recording studio. While I've always admired his songwritting, the prior recordings always left me flat. It seemed like there was alot more there, but it wasn't comming throught the speakers. Well, this is the best 'sounding' Nick Cave album of the bunch. The geetars are at once bright and menacing, the base keeps the throbbing pulse in the forefront, the piano slaps you in the face at exactly the right time, and that's just on the ballads. The crowd noise is minimal, so it plays like a greatest hits with much, much better versions than the originals. If you think Nick Cave is at all interesting, you really should hear what is going on here.

I must add - looking at the numbers of people who have found the prior reviews helpful...Nick Cave fans have got to be some of the most negative people in existance, but hey, I'm down with that.

I wrote the same thing about the live CD of Nick Cave's early band, the punk act The Birthday Party. With the release of this album, "The birthday Party live 81-81", as with the live dvd "Pleasure heads must burn", Nick Cave showed he was much more than just a singer; he was a performer, shocking, arresting, preaching, screaming, howling, even menacing... but always moving.

After the early demise of TBP Nick came back in the early eighties with his ensemble The Bad Seeds. First with some experimental albums like "From her to eternity" and the more than wonderful "The Firstborn is dead", then some crossovers between the experimental and the more pop music orientated songs ("Your funeral... my trial" and "Tender prey") and then the real polished, mainly matured LP's like "The Good son" and "Henry's dream".
But even the polished, pop orientated albums are always full of surprises, off beat musical structures, dark, oppressing moods and filled with Oldtestament-like preachings.

Now there is the first official live cd "Live Seeds" and it's a smasher. It takes guts to open with the song "The mercy seat", (for theatrical performance a little abridged - the original lasts about seven abrasive minutes) because you have to be a real artist to top such a sheer musical rumpunch of genius.
But Nick Cave just proceeds like a howling blind man, with such rock songs as "Deanna", "Papa won't leave you, Henry", the apocalyptic "Tupelo", "Brother my cup is empty", "Jack the Ripper", that other Biblical thunder: "The Good son" and of course "From her to eternity".

In between are some moments of contemplation with ballads like "The Ship song", "Plain gold ring" and "New morning".
With the exception of some truely great songs, Nick Cave's weak point is the ballad - like I said, he can be great but most of the time, his slower songs don't really stick, they don't eat away our memories, they don't devour us, not like the stage-smashing rock pieces do.

But this album rocks, it stuns. It devours.
And when it leaves you gasping for more, try the two live dvd's "The Road to God knows where / Live at the Paradiso" and "God is in the house" - and you'll come to the same conclusion as me, graphicly mentioned above: put The Nick and his topnotch musical ensemble of the Bad Seeds on a stage, where they belong.

Live Seeds is a lavish collection of excellent performances from Cave and The Bad Seeds. All the songs are crisp and precise, performed both professionally and frenetically. The record does a good job of balancing Nick's career up to that point, as it features several songs from this then-newest album (Henry's Dream), as well as some of the best-known songs from earlier in his career. Also, while it shows Cave's excellent ballad side with such heart-breakingly beautiful tracks as The Ship Song and New Morning, on others, such as the raving Deanna and an over-intense version of From Her To Eternity, The Bad Seeds' reserve is stretched to the breaking point. This makes for an excellent balance of music. Most of Cave's better songs up to this point are here, and what is here is very good; with some of the songs, notably Papa Won't Leave You, Henry, seemingly superior to the existing studio versions. Their cover version of Plain Gold Ring is a standout as well. My only complaint is that the crowd is virtually non-existent. They can rarely be heard, and Cave's banter with the crowd (often such a memorable part of his concerts) is minimal. Consequently, it sounds almost as if he and The Bad Seeds are playing live without a crowd. But the performances are so good you won't care. A small complaint on the surface of an otherwise incredibly smooth album. Highly reccommended.

nick cave and the bad seeds are at their best live. I've been listening to this disc now for a good year or two solidly and I don't forsee myself stopping anytime soon. of the two hundred or so odd albums that I have, this one is in the top three ever. no lie. buy it.

the emotion and the talent that nick cave and the bad seeds are so full of really comes through in this album, just as it does in all the others. a little bit more accesible than some of his earlier stuff, partly because it is live (and thus a bit more upbeat than most of his albums) and also because it includes more of the songs that you want to hum and less of the songs that make you want to bash your head into a wall until you are left with only a bloody stump. he really is brilliant, even if this review is less than it. listening to nick cave is a vision into what true pain, depression, and thought are like; if you prefer to remain shallow for the rest of your life, then avoid this album (and the rest of their music) like the plague.

Yes, the previous reviews say it all. This CD is, to put it simply, essential to the CD collection of any serious listener of rock music or any sort of music for that matter. I will only add that the all the songs are excellently recorded and that Mr. Nick Cave has never sounded better or more charismatic. It's Epiphany Time!

I knew Nick Cave from "Murder Ballads", but after seeing him live, I felt like his early work was more interesting. And by GAWD, this CD is Nick ... Cave live. He makes soft songs scary and scary songs demential. This CD makes you feel right at a concert (they kept just the right amount of crowwd reaction, and the man shouting "TUPELO!!!" when the opening strings kick in gave me shivers). Combined with Neko Case (the band that was opening the concert I attended), you have a very nice evening in perspective. DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS CD ON YOUR WAY TO WORK/SCHOOL/SOCIAL LIFE, you might find the rest of humanity boring !