By Paul Robicheau

The solo format at Alexandra Palace recalled his recent “Conversations with Nick Cave” tours, a similar chance for the singer to deconstruct his songs at the piano, except that he never addressed an imagined audience beyond his lyrics.

Nick Cave. Photo: Kerry Brown.

“Will I bid you adieu, or will I be seeing you soon?” Nick Cave sang in “Idiot Prayer,” the namesake opener of a haunting solo concert streamed on Thursday. “If what they say ’round here is true, then we’ll meet again, me and you.”

While he’s a man headed to the afterlife in that song, Cave also sounded like any artist speaking to his audience in today’s pandemic world. At this juncture, the shamanistic frontman should be readying a tour with his gothic outfit the Bad Seeds, to physically commune with a general-admission crowd on the floor of Boston’s Agganis Arena in September. Instead, he was holding court at a piano in the center of a vast, empty 1800s-era function hall at London’s Alexandra Palace.

Touring artists face limited outlets to perform at this time. Some play outdoors, increasingly on drive-in stages. Others stay online, offering either archival shows or livestreams from living rooms and crowdless venues, with a few starting to charge for online shows beyond a tip jar. But of course, online live shows don’t portray the full concert experience — apart from happening in the moment.

Cave carves another path with Idiot Prayer, filmed in June but shared on Thursday as a ticketed “global live streaming event” not to be officially archived online. In that sense, it was more like a pay-for-view concert, if not technically live. Instead, it was more artistic as an edited film, and its novel setting was part of the show.

The solo format at Alexandra Palace recalled his recent “Conversations with Nick Cave” tours, a similar chance for the singer to deconstruct his songs at the piano, except that he never addressed an imagined audience beyond his lyrics.

That initially lent a melancholy monotony to the 90-minute set of 21 songs – 22 counting the recorded recitation of “The Spinning Song” as Cave walked into the venue. He favored pianocentric tracks from his catalog (hence six from 1997’s The Boatman’s Call) while returning the rave-up “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry” to lullaby-like origins and taking lyrical liberties with other tunes, notably skipping chunks of verse in “Jubilee Street” and “Black Hair.” He also inserted two songs from Grinderman, his scrappy offshoot of the Bad Seeds. “Man in the Moon” retained its somber tone, yet highlight “Palaces of Montezuma” proved stately and even pretty, with a creeping rhythmic buildup on his Fazioli baby grand.

Unsurprisingly, “The Mercy Seat” gripped as a mid-set climax, even while inching closer to Johnny Cash’s cover in its stripped-down delivery. Cave sang with eyes closed, tightening the tension with booming chords as his tale of a man facing the electric chair peaked and then dropped into an elegiac coda where Cave lifted his finger from the last piano note. He virtually exhaled to follow with “Euthanasia,” a new song that seamlessly joined a repertoire rife with ruminations on death, grief, love and redemption. “In looking for you, I lost myself, lost myself in time” sang Cave, whose recent work has reflected the passing of his 15-year-old son from a 2015 cliff fall. “In losing myself, I found myself, found myself in time.”

“(Are You) the One that I’ve Been Waiting For,” freed from its country lilt on The Boatman’s Call, touched similar terrain in the lines “Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built, out of longing great wonders have been willed.” Yet Cave – a stark vision in black, from his trademark suit to the cloak of hair hugging his unmistakable profile – managed to crack a smile at song’s end before a fading chuckle. Listeners could likewise smile when the playfully menacing “Higgs Boson Blues” wove from Robert Johnson and Lucifer to the idea of Hannah Montana on the African savannah, Cave singing “She curses the queue at the zoo loos.”

Of course, while the show focuses and floats on Cave’s deeply intoned poetry, there’s a limit to how many closeups you’d want of him singing at the condenser mic or plying the piano keys, his left hand encrusted with golden rings. The visual details and mood of Idiot Prayer, filmed by cinematographer Robbie Ryan (Marriage Story), extended to views of the performer from all angles and distances.

Sometimes the lighting was sparse and bluish, but much of the concert was shot with natural light that showcased Alexandra Palace’s West Hall. The most striking images had the camera pulled back, Cave dwarfed at his piano in the center of the room with lyric sheets scattered at his feet. At times in particular, he was framed in cross rays of sunlight flooding in from corner doorways. After he closed simply with “Galleon Ship” from 2019’s Ghosteen, singing “We’ll stand and watch the galleon ships, circle ’round the morning sun,” Cave stood up and took the long walk to one of those doors, disappearing into the light.

Paul Robicheau served more than 20 years as contributing editor for music at The Improper Bostonian in addition to writing and photography for The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He was also the founding arts editor of Boston Metro.