Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at Alexandra Palace

The fact that the Alexandra Great Hall is, when you get right down to it, a pretty lousy venue, with duff acoustics and iffy visuals, did not prevent Cave and his gang of sharp suited hooligans from blasting through a set which kicked every variety of the proverbial bottom. They hit the ground running with Get Ready for Love and never stopped from there.

Red Right Hand and Do You Love Me were a dark [Lovecraftian dark in the case of Red Right Hand], ominous presence, The Mercy Seat [which I didn't recognise until about halfway through, damnit] was a march into hell and There She Goes, My Beautiful World wasn't a set finisher so much as an apocalypse bringer. And the big crowd pleaser, Stagger Lee was as hilarious as ever.

The Bad Seeds excelled themselves in providing the requisite atmosphere of chaos. Martyn Casey's bass was menacing, bringing to mind a U-Boat on the prowl at one point; Tom Wydler and Jim Scalvunos drummed like they were trying to put each other out of work; and Warren Ellis,sporting a shaggy beard, played like he was beating a small child. Its interesting actually that in a set where Ellis was breaking violin strings left and right, he was at his best playing flute on Breathless.

Then again, Cave himself hardly slouched. He was in full preacher mode for this one, charging around with the vigour of someone half his age. He's been at it for 25 years but based on this the tank's still far from empty.