FILM REVIEW: "20,000 Days On Earth"

Cover design for 20,000 Days On Earth.  Photo courtesy of DraftHouseFilms.com.

Near the end of the film 20,000 Days On Earth, Nick Cave, with the Bad Seeds behind him, performs among a throng of fans. He grabs the hand of a young girl, pressing her palm onto his chest as he whispers into the microphone, "Can you feel my heartbeat?" He repeats the line, at the end of “Higgs Boson Blues,” until the fan can only look him in the eye and nod, yes.

   When the song ends, Cave jumps back onto the stage, his energy restored. "When you enter the heart of the song," Cave explains in the film about performing live, "you can be taken away...and feel godlike."

   The improvisational documentary by filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard is meant to play like one full fictional day in the life of one of rock and roll's greatest frontmen. The audience sees how the man is currently living and working and encounters a glimmer of insight into his creative process.

   Throughout 20,000 Days On Earth, the Bad Seeds are hard at work on their fifteenth album, Push The Sky Away. Cave and his right-hand man, multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, work on an off-the-cuff song about Lionel Richie. They share a lunch and reminisce about a Nina Simone performance at the Cave-curated Meltdown Festival in 1999 that left them with mouths agape. Ellis rides an elliptical and conducts a children’s choir for the recording of “Push The Sky Away.” The viewer is given a rare opportunity to gaze deeply into Cave's dark blue eyes as he sings.

   The film does not follow the basic linear retelling of the average rock documentary. Instead, it’s Cave offering stories of his early days with Birthday Party, growing up a brooding boy in a small Australian town and balancing church life with drugs when he was a young adult.

   At one point during Cave’s day, he stops to revisit old photographs and various pieces of memorabilia from his life. He seems delighted, even giddy, to be pouring over and celebrating his past.

   Rather than simply regurgitating old clips from a storied career, what the filmmakers have done is show their subject's emotional reaction to his past. This is where the film succeeds most.

   Seeing a bubbly Nick Cave, grinning from ear to ear, looking over photos of himself isn’t exactly the image one would expect from the cagey prince of goth. He isn’t the most forthcoming about personal details so it’s welcoming to witness him acknowledge his own personal and creative past.

   The film intermittently is cut with Cave opening up to his therapist. The whole time the therapist looks just as transfixed as the audience by what his patient is telling him.

   When asked about his first sexual experience, Cave discusses being turned on at 15 by a girl with black hair and a very white face. He insists the experience wasn’t outrightly sexual, but admits that her contrasting features flipped a switch inside him. At that moment he became aware of the power of arousal--a power that would go on to greatly influence his songwriting.

   The most stunning revelation of the film is that the man with eyes like coal has his own set of fears. As Cave drives through rainy Bristol and navigates his day, he looks back on the past with a host of guests. With longtime collaborator and friend Kylie Minogue in the backseat of his car, he discusses the vulnerabilities of being a rock star.

   His whole life, he explains, he imagined becoming the man he is today: bold, acerbic, lyrical, confident, a showman. The success of becoming a famous persona has outweighed his inner self and he finds it difficult to retreat to any sort of normal life. Not that he would want any soft of “normal” life.

   Ultimately the film inspires the creative heart to dig into something deep, something profound. We live in our work. Our art is our reality. Cave talks a lot about memory and how our personal histories are shaped only by what we remember. His biggest fear, he says, is to lose his memory because it would then be as though he were never there. Songwriting for him is the net that captures his life experiences as he finds a perspective on them that makes sense.

   Find out where 20,000 Days On Earth is playing in your city here.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Nick Cave inserts himself into the crowd at Prospect Park, Broolyn. All photos by Eli Jace.

"Some people say it’s just rock and roll / Ah, but it gets ya right down in your soul” -- from "Push the Sky Away"

   He’s that bad motherfucker called Nick Cave and last Saturday night he and his renegades in The Bad Seeds played Prospect Park in Brooklyn, potentially waking up God from a deep, deep sleep. 

   They kept the crowd in hysterics all night with a career-spanning set. By all accounts it was a perfect performance from one of the most gripping musical acts around. 

   The Bad Seeds took the stage to the cunning, rumbling bass loop that starts “We Real Cool” off their newest album, the magnificent Push The Sky Away. The lights were dark, except for a line of downcast blues at the back. 

   As always, when the impeccably dressed Nick Cave enters the picture, the first, most recognizable thing you notice are his eyebrows. Like his hair, slicked back, and his finely pressed suit, they are jet black and frame his leering, distrustful eyes. They seem to move out ahead of the rest of his body. 

   Cave, the man, stood at the edge of the stage, lit-up in dark cobalt blue light. His eyebrows flipped inward like they were trying to touch as he began, “Who took your measurements from your toes to the top of your head? Yeah, you know.”

   They kept to the new album and played “Jubilee Street” with perfect transcendental precision. The strings grew manic while Cave slithered in one spot, reaching lyrical climax. “I am alone now / I am beyond recrimination…,” he sang as the song shot out over Prospect Park and lingered into the Brooklyn air. “I’m transforming / I’m vibrating / I’m glowing / I’m flying / Look at me know!” 

   Only two songs in and the jubilation was already sky-high. Saturday’s show came at the tail end of the Australian group’s second tour of the States for their fifteenth album, Push the Sky Away, released last year. The show was one of the slotted benefit events for Celebrate Brooklyn. 

Devendra Banhart alone on stage.

   Nicole Atkins started the night off with songs off her new album, Slow Phaser. Following her was Devendra Banhart who gave a shambolic performance with strands of songs from all over his discography. The stage may as well have been a living room as he lazily teased out versions of “Body Breaks,” “Golden Girls,” “Little Yellow Spider” and others. Nobody was trying to hide it. Everyone was present for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and even the openers sensed it. 

   Cave spent most of the show gliding from one side of the stage to the other, engaging heroically with the crowd. As the roaming “Higgs Boson Blues” concluded, Cave was nearly lying on top of the audience. “Miley Cyrus floats in a swimming pool in Toluca Lake,” he sang between heaves as the song died, “and you’re the best girl I ever had.” 

   Every sinewy step he took radiated with energy. The man moves with alarm, like a wiley Dick Tracy villain in an expensive suit. He’s one of the greatest frontmen the world has seen and The Bad Seeds expertly back up his every physical and lyrical outburst.

   The night’s emotional apex struck the middle of the set when Cave took to the piano for “Love Letter” and “Into My Arms.” Positioned sideways, he played the keys with aching clarity as he sang about love’s arresting ways.

   Midway through, Cave ditched the black suit jacket to reveal a gold lamé dress shirt underneath. By the end it was rumpled with sweat. 

   The set ended with a gunshot and some gauze to help the wound. “Stagger Lee” was as forceful, ruthless and vile as one could hope the murder ballad to be. Then “Push the Sky Away” flooded the park with its ominous drone.

   The band returned for two encores, first tearing through the classics “Red Right Hand” and “Deanna.” The second was unexpected with Cave wading into “The Lyre Of Orpheus” for the finale. “Orpheus looked at his instrument / And he gave the wire a pluck,” Cave sang. “He heard a sound so beautiful / He gasped and said, ‘Oh my god…’”

source: http://QuietLunch