In 1989, director Uli M. Schueppel accompanied Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on their US tour – on the road in the tour bus and backstage, at soundchecks and live on stage. Moments of boredom alternate with ones of absolute poetry. Schueppel captures all this in raw black and white with his 16mm camera and becomes a silent observer of the musicians. In the process, he succeeds in generating an intimacy that is hard to resist. It’s above all Nick Cave who one follows with fascination, a brittle storyteller whose moments of being cheered in the spotlight are hardly able to dispel the long shadows of the real world of touring. To coincide with the Nick Cave concert at the Berlin Waldbühne on July 14th, THE ROAD TO GOD KNOWS WHERE (United Kingdom/Germany 1990) offers a look back at the band’s early years. Guest: Uli M. Schueppel. (ah) (30.7.)
