page_title: Idiot Prayer
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Idiot Prayer / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Alexandra_Palace_from_air
context_page_description: Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace is a concert film by Australian musician Nick Cave. It was streamed globally to ticket holders online on 23 July 2020. It was filmed by cinematographer Robbie Ryan and features Cave performing solo on piano at Alexandra Palace in London.
  Idiot Prayer serves as the final film in a trilogy—along with 20,000 Days on Earth and One More Time with Feeling —and was described by Cave as "its luminous and heartfelt climax."
context_section_description: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released its seventeenth studio album Ghosteen on 4 October 2019. The band announced a 33-date European and UK tour, due to begin on 19 April 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal and conclude on 17 June in Tel Aviv, Israel. An 18-date North American tour, beginning on 16 September in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US and concluding on 17 October in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was also later announced. A month prior to its commencement, it was announced that the European and UK tour was cancelled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with all shows rescheduled to later dates in 2021; three months later the North American tour was also cancelled. In lieu of the cancelled shows, Cave recorded a solo performance that June at Alexandra Palace's West Hall in London. The full performance was streamed globally as a concert film, Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace, on 23 July. It was filmed by cinematographer Robbie Ryan. The production involved significant precautions against the spread of COVID-19.
  The film evolved from Cave's 2019 solo Conversations tour, in which he performed stripped down versions of his songs on piano with more of a focus on the lyrics. During the tour, Cave began to consider recording the Conversations versions of his songs in a studio. During the pandemic, he decided to record and film the songs and enlisted cinematographer Robbie Ryan, sound engineer Dom Monks and editor Nick Emerson. Idiot Prayer serves as the final film in a trilogy—along with 20,000 Days on Earth (2014) and One More Time with Feeling (2016)—and was described by Cave as "its luminous and heartfelt climax." It features performances of songs from across the Bad Seeds discography, as well as a song from Grinderman and a new song entitled "Euthanasia".
  Speaking with NME, Robbie Ryan revealed the performance was recorded in one take with two cameras. Ryan also described his role, saying, "It was an interesting process for me, because there was no director really. Nick was the director of sorts, but he wouldn't call himself that. Normally in my world, you get picked by the director and then they run the show. This was different, so Nick was very curious about how we went about it and was very collaborative as to what I thought."
caption: Alexandra Palace
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