Nick Cave Captivates Philharmonie With Soulful Solo Show

On Wednesday 10 September 2025, the Philharmonie Luxembourg hosted the first of two nights of enigmatic musician Nick Cave’s solo tour.

Nick Cave’s career, from his time as the lead singer of Australian post-punk band The Birthday Party to the leader of his current band The Bad Seeds, has seen him develop into a character who embodies the profile of sage or preacher, delivering musical sermons known to reduce people to tears with their beauty and directness. 

This solo tour sees the musician reinvestigating songs from his Bad Seeds catalogue and presenting them in a more stripped down fashion in an effort to “get back to the truth” behind the songs.

Before the show begins, the audience waits with bated breath for his arrival. At one point, a change in the ambient build-up music brings an eerie silence to the excited room, such is the anticipation. 

The first to the stage is bass player Colin Greenwood, “on loan” from alternative rock band Radiohead. He arrives stage right to great applause, his stature as a musician already well-known to those in attendance. Some moments later, the tall and elegant Nick Cave arrives stage left. Dressed in a sharp black suit and with his signature slicked black hair, he raises his hands to the crowd and smiles as thunderous applause greets his arrival.

Nick Cave’s physicality and interaction with his audiences are a vital part of his live performances with his full band, but tonight he is mostly positioned behind his grand piano, only occasionally coming forward to offer his appreciation and talk of the origins of the songs he has chosen to perform this evening.

The setlist consists of a mixture of mostly well-known choices from across his back catalogue, such as Higgs Boson Blues, The Mercy Seat and The Weeping Song but with only his voice, the piano and Colin Greenwood’s deft bass accompaniment, he takes their familiarity and transforms them into delicate, almost fragile confessions. 

In doing so, he somehow pulls in the walls of the Grand Hall to make 1,400 people feel as if they are sat next to him on the stage. His laser-like vocal delivery being attuned to the individual as much as the crowd.

With minimal stage lighting, the darkened room ebbs between reverberation and delicate calm as Cave gracefully delivers an enthralling set, full of a surprising level of audience interaction. For his rendition of Balcony Man, he literally has half the audience on its feet whenever he commands it.

Yet, for such serious and often heart-wrenching songs, Nick Cave excels at injecting levity into his performance, maintaining a grounded and approachable sense of self beyond that of many established rock stars. 

He is certainly a beguiling character. One moment he can seem utterly absorbed in a song full of anguish and sorrow, but when done he is suddenly on his feet, grinning widely, thanking the audience and sharing an almost childlike smile with his musical partner.

Special note goes to Colin Greenwood, whose often metronomic bass playing provided the contrasting low end to the grand piano and Cave’s often soaring voice. Both musicians managed to occupy the almost sacred space of being loose and locked in at the same time as they enjoyed their time together on stage.

Highlights of the set included covers of Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche and T.Rex’s Cosmic Dancer but the greatest moments are reserved for the encore and two Bad Seed staples: Tupelo and Into My Arms. 

The rising thunder of Tupelo is built on Greenwood’s deep bass notes and Cave channelling a preacher supreme. Minimal yet intense red lights create an eerie atmosphere in the blackness of the hall and many in the crowd leave their seats to move towards the front of the stage. The sight resembled the later scenes in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where the scientists stand in awe as the spaceship lands and aliens appear. It was a sight with almost religious tones.

In contrast, Into My Arms featured just Cave, under a single spotlight, conducting the crowd into singing harmonies as he delivered a poignant musical sermon in heartbreak, human connection and love.

The standing ovation which followed came as no surprise and, with this performance, it is undeniable that Nick Cave sits comfortably next to the great singer-songwriters of modern times, such as Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker and Patti Smith.