It seemed Nick Cave almost couldn’t believe it himself, peaking out from behind the Oyster Stage it seemed the baying mobs beckoning Glasvegas to the top hadn’t yet returned for what turned out to be quite an intimate world class audience with Grinderman.

It was the second slight of the day on the antipodeans, peering out to the stage in the last drops of daylight, which casting a greyish haze over proceedings, having already been relegated from top-spot for Paisley’s Paolo Nutini. Fortunately when Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos do decide to take to the stage they don’t hold a grudge and proceed to mess things up a bit with this gorgeously trashy offering.

Cave has never been backward at coming forwards at the best of times. His nigh-on 30-year career is littered with moments of sonic maximalism, but Grinderman pushes the envelope further out than he and many of his collaborators and contemporaries have ever pushed it before.

His scholarly approach to music went out the window with Grinderman’s dirty blues and this path less trodden insures a maniacal performance onstage. He’s a man possessed during Get It On, No Pussy Blues and Love Bomb, delivering outstanding proof that Iggy Pop does not have the monopoly on being wrinkly and rocking out.

Grinderman rock heavier and wilder than most metal bands could ever hope to and as the light turns to dark Cave’s thrusting and pontificating across the stage are aided by a phenomenal lightshow, the equal part to Grinderman’s amazing musicianship.
Eventually the perpetual motion of Cave draws to a close with no one in attendance left in any doubt that Grinderman are a masterful, feral rock outfit.