You better run to the city of refuge

'Cause Nick Cave and them Bad Seeds are in town. By sundown tonight, not even the rattlesnakes'll be safe.

Update: What a fantastic show! Below is a fairly accurate setlist of what Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds played at The Warfield tonight (9/19). They're all songs about "the usual stuff." Oh, and the mustache brigade (in the audience) was scant seen this evening. I saw maybe four or five who deserve an "E" for effort, but nothing even approximating the Selleck, Bronson, or Cave variety.

Setlist revised from Blah Blah Blog:

1. Night of the Lotus Eaters
2. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
3. Tupelo
4. Today's Lesson
5. Red Right Hand (Scream 3 version) (MP3 from Rarities and B-sides Vol. II, 2005)
6. I Let Love In
7. Midnight Man
8. The Mercy Seat (Acoustic version) (MP3 from Rarities and B-sides Vol. I, 2005)
9. Deanna (Acoustic version) (MP3 from Rarities and B-sides Vol. I, 2005)
10. Moonland
11. The Ship Song
12. We Call Upon The Author
13. Papa Won't Leave You, Henry
14. More News From Nowhere
15. The Lyre of Orpheus
16. Into My Arms
17. Get Ready For Love
18. Hard-on For Love
19. God Is In The House
20. Stagger Lee

Bonus link: "Little Empty Boat" (MP3 from Rarities and B-sides Vol. III, 2005)

Update: The crowd at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre last night was unabashedly vociferous in their adoration of the music, the man and the band. Throughout the night, Cave darted from one end of the stage to the other, howling, dancing and leaning into the throng of enthusiastic fans, while the band anchored the vocals to music (keyboardist, Conway Savage and drummer, Thomas Wydler, making shakers seem like pretty fun instruments to play.) Cave, amused and bemused, by the intermittent, hardly audible calls and shouts from the front audience, reciprocated the love. Starting the set off with "Night of the Lotus Eaters", a Tennysonian number, it was the first of many songs they played from their latest album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Mute, 2008). It was followed by the title track off of Dig!!! and the syncopated chanting of "Tupelo" from the First Born Is Dead. They performed audience favorites, "The Mercy Seat", "Deanna", and "Red Right Hand" with "I Let Love In" for variation, and then my brain mutinied. I gave up trying to remember the correct order of the setlist and let the music in. They charged right into "Midnight Man" (introduced by Cave as a song about "stuff") "Today's Lesson" and "The Lyre of Orpheus," for which the frontman solicited the audience's participation to fill in the "oh mama's." One of my favorites of the night, "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry", was followed by "Moonland" and the rocking invocations of "We Call Upon The Author," replete with Warren Ellis writhing on the floor while he seemed to be conjuring the electronic breakdowns in the song from the stage itself (He might have had a laptop on the floor. I couldn't see.) The set was capped off with "More News From Nowhere." After a brief intermission, unsated fans were treated to an encore of "God Is In The House" from No More Shall We Part, "Into My Arms" from The Boatman's Call and a tune about everybody's favorite outlaw sociopath, "Stagger Lee."

Hands up! Who's ready for more? I am!