Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away at 10 Review

A retrospective calm before the storm of life comes through on Push the Sky Away. Quite the remarkable feat, to push back against that, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ 2013 record did just that. An incredible, important triumph of an album that is now ten years on and just as powerful. For a decade of celebration comes a film from Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard. Its initial release plants it firmly in 2013, at The Fonda in California. Black and white beauty placed over a darkened stage, close-up shots of Cave, Warren Ellis and company as they offer Push the Sky Away to an audience in full. Push the Sky Away at 10 is a crucial, devastatingly important release. 

Right there on the stage, Cave and company desire a new spark. It can be felt as clear as day. Unsettling ballads, delicate string sections that feel as rickety as they are powerful. Water’s Edge commands those city girl lyrics and gives Cave the role of frontman as well as conductor. Ellis literally conducts but Cave holds the audience firm as ever. He brandishes his arms, flails as the quiet cacophony begins to rise from the orchestra-like collection, the grand choir behind him. Cave has always found presence in his style on stage, whether that is here in front of and behind hundreds or with Idiot Prayer where one man and his grand piano stormed through with intimate beauty. Jubilee Street sees the power of the former, an earth-shattering display that sees Cave and the band in their natural element. On stage is where they belong and where they appear happy to stay. 

Those intimacies and broad vibrations from Push the Sky Away are successfully captured and move on through into a second set of best bits. At the core of it all is Cave, swaying and moving ever closer to the crowd of fascinated attendees. Forsyth and Pollard capture the core experience of live music and do their best at keeping up. They have worked with Cave time and time again. Their intimacies in this early stage of their work showcase that energy, that excitement, that still presents itself a decade later. Forsyth and Pollard had great success with another live showcase, Jarv Is thrown into the caverns and undergrowth of a cave system and proved a delicate, visual beauty much like this gig from Cave. But that jump into colour on Push the Sky Away at 10 is incredible.  

Push the Sky Away at 10 gives fans and viewers what those in the audience already know. Cave is an intimate and open singer with intensity in tragedy and joy in faith. This collection of tracks and a bustling, well-directed live set give way to the elements of sporadic and consistent improvisation. Nobody knows where a live set is going until it gets there. Hearing the likes of The Mercy Seat in this intimate and acoustic form, the powerful works of Stagger Lee and O Children powering through, gives Push the Sky Away at 10 what fans of Cave and The Bad Seeds are already assured of. Quality, inspired pushes against that sky. The sky is the limit, and they keep on pushing.