Nick Cave is a man as renowned for his coiffeur as he is for his music. From his spiky punkishness in the Boys Next Door, through the untamed insanity of the Birthday Party, into the seedy quiffs of the Bad Seeds, and finally the lank decay of Grinderman, his hair has left as much of an impression as his voice. But what has happened to the hair he has cut off and the hair he has lost? Where has it gone? Where does all our fallen hair go?

I arrived at the Enmore Theatre and made my way through the anxious crowd. I felt something brush against my leg and looked down, but I could see nothing unusual before the surge of the crowd carried me inside.

I took my position at front of stage and noticed something next to me that resembled an unkempt Tribble. I stared at it for a while before realising it was Morrissey’s hair. I was uneasy with the hair next to me. Morrissey and I have a long standing dislike of each other, even though we have never met and he doesn’t know I exist. I could feel the hair looking at me, with whatever it used for eyes. Sydney is a long way from Manchester, and I liked keeping that distance between us.

Before the music started we were entertained by magician Mic Conway. This was old school magic played for laughs. And laugh we did, except for Morrissey’s hair which seemed to have no sense of humour.

The perfect support for a Nick Cave is Nick Cave, and he arrived to cheers with his latest band, Grinderman. The mad monk Rasputin (aka Warren Ellis) was on guitar, bouzouki, violin and anything else he could find. A demented, alternate universe Chuck Norris (aka Martyn Casey) was on bass. And Mick Fleetwood’s evil twin (aka Jim Sclavunos) was on drums and percussion. Nick had taken these Bad Seeds to the deep south where he fed them a diet of peyote infused moonshine while writing songs of love, desire, and redemption.

Grinderman’s sound was dirty and sharp, loose and tight, salvation and damnation, all rolled up in to one fiery ball. Morrissey’s hair was bumping against me during the wilder songs, trying to catch me off balance. I nudged it back, refusing to give in to whining one’s locks. Nick Cave gambolled around the stage in demented fashion while the band playing incessantly behind him. This was Nick in animated mode, frantic and playful with the audience. The crowd were gyrating to Grinderman, and I am sure I saw ZZ Top’s beards enjoying the quieter moments in the set. Grinderman left the stage and I wondered what Nick Cave solo would be like. The piano was there, and I was concerned that Nick was going to go Peter Allen on me.

Nick Cave Solo is a misnomer. When he came on stage he was not alone, he brought the band back with him. He introduced the set as, “Hits. Or songs that should have been hits. I think of them as hits. If you sing along, they will be hits.” The songs were mostly from the Bad Seeds era with Nick accompanying the band on piano, and occasionally guitar. The crowd cheered for every song, even though there were far too many slow numbers (eg Into My Arms), but cheered the most when the tempo increased. The Weeping Song was given a makeover and the grinder band attacked it with relentless force making it more intense than ever before. I saw Leonard Cohen’s hair nodding approvingly at the reinterpretations. There were many requests for Birthday Party and Boys Next Door songs but they were, sadly, never answered.

Nick was in a talkative and mischievous mood. When someone in the front complained his keyboards were obscuring their view, Cave had the keyboards removed. He even stopped during songs to respond to the audience, before seamlessly recommencing where he left of. When women screamed they loved him, he agreed. And the night was educational, I learned that The Mercy Seat is ,”a song about various things”.

Despite the jovial and intimate atmosphere of the room, the tension between Morrissey’s hair and myself eventually cracked and it leapt at me. I was reeling backward expecting the impact when another bundle of hair tackled Morrissey’s in mid-flight. There was a scuffle on the ground that sounded like cats fighting in a tumble dryer, and then Morrissey’s hair took off in erratic fashion towards the door. I recognised my rescuer. It was Robert Smith’s hair, complete with traces of mascara and lipstick. I nodded and smiled at my hirsute hero, and used my fingers to restore its meticulously dishevelled appearance. Robert Smith may be an unlikely hero, but his hair is noble and above reproach.

Nick Cave is a showman in the old style. A professional with a finely honed act. After the obligatory encore, the band went to leave, but Nick dragged them back for one more song. I left feeling fulfilled, although slightly rattled by my encounter with Morrissey’s hair. I was glancing around nervously when I saw more hair in a car parked around the corner. It looked suspiciously like Hugh Grant’s bouffant, and there was more in there with him, possibly that of an African-American woman. I didn’t stop to watch. The nocturnal exploits of the hair of England’s finest actor was of no concern to me. I walked home humming the tunes I wished I heard that night, including Somebody’s Watching Me.