And I'm not afraid to die

You can only do that if you're a front man with years of experience. Nick Cave rode that stage like it was some kind of wild horse, he was all legs and arms and hands. He is a tall walking stick of rock and finally I understand how groupies could happen.

There were two sets, I was most looking forward to the first set, the Grinderman set but I fear I was in the minority. Sometimes there was a failure to launch. The drummer, come on the drummer, was clearly both aged and able. He was wearing a pink suit but in the Grinderman set he failed to build it. Rhythm when its working can free your soul. Now everyone knows that there is a progression that releases the soul. There is a famous piece that most conductors will only do once in their lives, so powerful is the music that it can destroy you. It is a symphony of death. Lesser known but more often felt is the rhythmic equivalent.

When you drum, when you are in the rhythm section it is your duty to build the cage. You can't technically define the cage. It is something that surrounds you in safety and then freedom. It conjurs into being bars to rattle. You know you're there when you can fall off the beat, go behind it, dance around it, set your elbows on fire with fills and accents and its still there. It doesn't matter now what you do because the cage of rhythm is solid. You have to build it with years of thud thud paradiddle, you can't just go out and buy standard number five rock sticks and expect the cage to appear. It is inside reverie.

Now Jim, the drummer, he was building the cage, you can tell its somewhere that he has lived but in the first set it wasn't quite there. Not quite there and god knows you need a cage in which to keep both Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. They must transport Warren Ellis between gigs in some kind of reinforced box. He's hellfire on legs and I'm sure it takes a man like Nick to tame him.

The second set, now that was a different game. The crowd was wrong, they were not my people. I went alone, prepared to throw myself into the abyss, all around me people were dancing and screaming throwing reverent arms into the sky but it was somehow wrong and I kept my harness attached for safety.

I went alone. I got dressed alone, walked there alone, stood outside smoking a cigarette alone, filed in alone and stood like an atoll in a sea of locked arms and hands in each other's pockets. Now I am sick. I've been ill for weeks now, a murderous elusive kind of ill that comes and goes with different signs and symptoms. Last night in a noodle place I burst into flame and nearly passed out. Tonight in the Enmore my mouth went dry, the world turned, I felt the blood rush down away from my face and my skin took to setting on fire. This happened more than once. During the Ship Song I grabbed my bag and turned to make my way out into the lobby to fall onto the red carpet and wait for medical help but at the last second changed my mind. I took to leaning on drunk strangers or locking my legs together to hold myself up. There is a hard rock of pure evil stretching out the skin on the side of my neck. I don't know what the fuck it is, some kind of gland I'm guessing.

So I failed to let loose my whirling demons to dance with Nick Cave but I made it through the night under my own steam. Not once did I wish for rescue, not once did I falter. I walked out at the end, alone, my feet cushioned by that rolled out rubber mat that unfurls just for me when I open the clanking doors in my chest.

Digging for fire has an excellent photo and an account of his Melbourne Nick Cave experience.