Alone in Alexandra Palace...

The time of Nick Cave the rock’n’roll radical is long gone. Once an erratic punk showman possessed by the ghosts of old greats like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Howlin’ Wolf and others… Time has very much smoothed down those edges, the Australian now dips his quill in a very different ink following the death of his son at the age of 15. With Skeleton Tree (2016) and Ghosteen (2019), the Bad Seeds frontman’s art transformed into a mystical outlet. Creation in grief, for grief. It is often through grief that stories of humanity are told and these albums provide a crushing reminder of this fact.

Released in Autumn 2020, Idiot Prayer is solemn in form but not substance. Voluntarily yes, but mostly due to the 2020 pandemic. Nick Cave is thus alone here, without his Bad Seeds or anyone else for that matter. Just him and a piano in Alexandra Palace, London. The performance was broadcast live online on the 23rd of July 2020. For this unique performance, the setlist goes beyond his last two albums (from which he plays only three songs) and sees Cave trawl through old Bad Seeds records (Stranger Than Kindness, The Ship Song, Black Hair, (Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For, The Mercy Seat…) and his other group, Grinderman (Man in the Moon, Palaces of Montezuma…). Only one new composition is included, Euthanasia, a melancholic hymn and study of loss…

His magnificent voice resonates within this grandiose 19th century Victorian palace enveloping the author in words of flesh and blood, surrealist and candid poetry. Nick Cave here resembles Robert Mitchum’s character in The Night of the Hunter who tattoos the words LOVE and HATE onto each of his hands and makes them fight each other. Through mixing love songs, murder ballads and tortured hymns, the Australian crooner offers a most beautiful treasure trove, a guided tour of his oeuvre. And such limited instrumentals bring out the best in his voice (he has rarely sung so well) strengthening his old songs tenfold. Marvellous!

LISTEN TO "IDIOT PRAYER" BY NICK CAVE ON QOBUZ

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