I saw Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds put on an energetic concert at the OVO Hydro

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds made an emphatic return to Glasgow’s OVO Hydro last night on their Wild God Tour of the UK and Europe.

It has been over seven years since Cave and the band had performed in the city, although fans had been able to catch him and Warren Ellis at the Theatre Royal in 2021.

There was mixed reaction to Cave performing in the city as Pro-Palestinian groups gathered outside the OVO Hydro to protest against the 67-year-old performing in Glasgow after his decision to perform in Israel.

Songs from his new album did not look at all out of place in his setlist which is over two-and-a-half hours long and is made up of 21 songs. As ever, he was his usual energetic self as he skipped around the stage with the band being tighter than ever. Although the Bad Seeds may have started out performing smaller venues which included places like The Pavilion Theatre and the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, they are still able to make a huge space their own and have always stood up to the challenge.

Cave also knowns a thing or two about his strengths as he is able to hold an arena audience in the very palm of his hands as his music touches every human emotion. Highlights on the night included “From Her to Eternity” and “Tupelo”. The four-member gospel choir are also worth a mention, a driving force behind Cave’s virtuoso artistry during this performance.

Talking about the current tour, Cave said: “I never think about how a record is going to go live, it never, ever occurs to me. The lyric writing process is way too hard to take ideas like that into consideration. But, when I listen to Wild God now, I think we can really do something epic with these songs live. We’re really excited about that - the record just feels like it was made for the stage.”