Nick Cave's right-hand man Warren Ellis on AI, Gorecki and staying young

In the next few days Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester and London. There are still some tickets left. The price is reasonable but the price doesn’t matter when the band are unequivocally one of the finest of live acts. By whatever means you can, go.

When you get there, enjoy Nick Cave himself, of course. Prepare to be awed by ‘Tupelo’, converted by ‘Into My Arms’. Prepare to cry to ‘Girl in Amber’ and dance to ‘Stagger Lee’. Get ready to experience an assault on every one of your orifices by the impossibly loud and dark ‘Jubilee Street’.

‘I think you feel like you’re a young person until you accept that you’re old. And I don’t want to do that’

But also watch Warren Ellis. The best position to do this is by standing near the front, stage left. That’s where Ellis stands. Don’t worry about your distance from the front-man – Cave moves around plenty in the three-piece suits he’s worn forever, even when he was scoring heroin. It’s Ellis that you want to be near. Over the course of a show, he’ll play the violin, piano, guitar (some six strings, some five), electric keyboard, flute, perhaps even a mandocello. The first time I saw him on stage, he scared me. His dark glare makes him look like he’s sizing you up. He’s thin, always suited and is one of those bald men with long hair. His beard, stretching down to where his heart is, has a range of greys as magnificent as an Inverness sky. He writhes and jerks, hacks and saws at his violin, which is occasionally wired into an amplifier. He makes it sound like a plane’s engine during take-off when he really starts going for it.