Nick Cave, SXSW, Austin

Nick Cave is testy because the sky isn’t yet dark and the ceremony will not work. How can you release the bats until the night draws in and the spring Texan air is ready for a more ominous texture? The solution is to play a new song called ‘Higgs Boson Blues’. There’s no great hurry to the music, as Nick takes us on a sleek drive around Geneva, aware of the subterranean particle experiments and the search some something unseen. The song shifts to the Mississippi Delta and now Mr Cave is on the trail of blues legend Robert Johnson, with his unearthly music and his supposed deal with the Devil. The song is a search for the dark matter and of course that’s the essence of this artist. An aversion to the commonplace. Pure darkness and light.

By the song’s end, it seems that Nick has drawn down the night sky. Astonishing theatre. And while he will play a few new works at the start – including the magisterial ‘Jubliee Street’ – the accent is on the big tunes, the awesome legacy. Like ‘Red Right Hand’, ‘Jack The Ripper’ and the howling imprecation of ‘Deanna’. Stubbs is an intimate, open air venue and it becomes the domain of the Buzzard King, all twisted limbs and pipe cleaner suit. He does ‘The Mercy Seat’ and you can barely exhale. ‘Staggerlee’ is all viciousness and damnation. He gives is some reprieve with ‘Push The Sky Away’ but not much of a benediction, and a long wait for the return of the light.