Photos and review by ALYSON CAMUS
LOS ANGELES – On a beautiful fall night, PJ Harvey performed the last show of her US-Canada tour in front of a crowd that was completely captivated by her magnetic stage presence. She played her entire last album, the mysterious and mythological I Inside the Old Year Dying – her first album in seven years – before launching into a more rocking second set filled with hits and other songs, effortlessly exploring her vast catalog.
It was an evening with PJ Harvey, with no opening band, just Polly Jean’s magnetic presence and her fantastic band (longtime bandmates John Parish, Jean-Marc Butty, Giovanni Ferrario, and James Johnston) for an immersive two-hour experience.
Dressed in layers of white and a cape adorned with black tree silhouette prints, she appeared as a majestic goddess shining like a vision and moving gracefully moving with very expressive pauses and and sweeping arm gestures. For the second part of the show, she changed into another white dress, this one covered with drawings made by the band members throughout the tour.
Only PJ Harvey could hold an audience spellbound with a set of 12 new songs adapted from her 2022 book-length epic poem “Orlam.” These experimental songs were quietly orchestrated, distilling a mysterious folk vibe with touches of electronics and field recordings including birdsongs and medieval-sounding lyrics.
This is certainly a way to challenge her fans, as the lyrics are sung in the nearly forgotten Dorset dialect of the English county where she was raised. Yet another example of how Polly Jean refuses to follow the same beaten path as she explained during interviews: “When I’m working on a new record, the most important thing is to not repeat myself … that’s always my aim: to try and cover new ground and really to challenge myself. Because I’m in this for learning.”
The music of her new work opened a dream-like world with stories that, because of the Dorset dialect, were barely comprehensible, yet evoked life in rural England, flowing with the rhythms of seasons, with animals and nature portrayed in a kind of spiritual and magical realism. At times, it was almost witchy and medieval, an intriguing, raw and fantastical journey through epochs, enhanced by complex arrangements.
However, it was impossible to ignore the anachronistic presence of Elvis throughout the set. While I’m sure the album contains more intellectual references, the recurring inclusion of “Love Me Tender” was hard to miss amid the otherwise cryptic lyrics, which included words like eth, gurrel, mampus, inneath, scrid, gawly, charken, chammer and many others. It was like a mystic talking in tongues and suddenly shifting to my own language. “Are you Elvis? Are you God? Jesus sent to win my trust?” she sang during the atmospheric and folksy “Lwonesome Tonight,” a clear nod to the King.
During these songs, PJ stretched her voice to new heights, using a falsetto that stood in sharp contrast to the rocker’s yell she adopted to perform her earlier work. As someone unfamiliar with this new material, I found this portion of the show transporting and introspective, evoking a wide range of emotions from melancholy to yearning and deep exploration. Between songs, the crowd’s silence was filled with recordings of church bells, wind noises, birdsong, and sheep mooing, and doves cooing, while PJ moved gracefully across the stage, sometimes contorting her arms around her head or covering her eyes.
When not wandering the stage, she played electric and acoustic guitar, while John Parish, Giovanni Ferrario, and James Johnston alternated between keyboards, guitars, and bass and Jean-Marc Butty used soft mallets on his drum kit.
While the storytelling may have been hard to decipher, the captivating sonic atmosphere was undeniable, and I appreciated the parallels between songs like “A Child’s Question, August” and “A Child’s Question, July,” or “I Inside the Old Year Dying” and “I Inside the Old I Dying.”
After the band performed “The Colour of the Earth,” PJ returned for the second set in her new white dress.
“Because it’s a special night, being the last show of this tour, I’m wearing a very special dress, and this special dress has been drawn by myself and the band. At every stop along the way we make a drawing and here it is! I’m wearing it tonight drawn by my wonderful band!” she explained, proudly displaying the detailed illustrations all over the dress.
She then performed two more songs from her antiwar album Let England Shake – “The Glorious Land,” with its nervously jittery guitars and battle-charging trumpet lines, and “The Words That Maketh Murder” with its ironically upbeat melody carrying lyrics that truly resonate today, like – especially the final chorus: “What if I take my problem to the United Nations?”
A riotous number was “50ft Queenie” with PJ crawling across the stage, unleashing an impressive surge of rock & roll energy. This was followed by the somber, Radiohead-esque “The Garden” and a moving solo acoustic rendition of “The Desperate Kingdom of Love” performed in pin-drop silence. Then, she delivered the ‘90s hits: the badass “Man-Size,” “Dress,” with Johnston’s violin stabs and Parish’s guitar breaks, and the iconic “Down by the Water” which she performed with all the necessary theatrics.
“To Bring You My Love” was the perfect song to close the show (before the encore), its haunting looping riff underscoring a powerful declaration: “I have lain with the devil and cursed God above, and forsaken heaven to bring you my love.”
The encore included a song of the same album, the wonderful “C’mon Billy” and the haunting “White Chalk,” during which PJ played harmonica, a lovely addition to her distinctive vocals.
The adventurous songstress thanked us many times before a final bow alongside her musicians. From her rural English countryside roots to her bold and eclectic musical adventure, the show was a full display of PJ Harvey’s unique artistry, resembling an epic journey guided by a captivating and mesmerizing performer.
Setlist
Set 1:
I Inside The Old Year Dying
Prayer at the Gate
Autumn Term
Lwonesome Tonight
Seem an I
The Nether-Edge
I Inside the Old Year Dying
All Souls
A Child’s Question, August
I Inside the Old I Dying
August
A Child’s Question, July
A Noiseless Noise
Set 2
The Colour of the Earth (band only) (Let England Shake)
The Glorious Land (Let England Shake)
The Words That Maketh Murder (Let England Shake)
50ft Queenie (Rid of Me)
Black Hearted Love (PJ Harvey & John Parish cover)
The Garden (Is This Desire)
The Desperate Kingdom of Love (Uh Huh Her)
Man-Size (Rid of Me)
Dress (Dry)
Down by the Water (To Bring You My Love)
To Bring You My Love (To Bring You My Love)
Encore:
C’mon Billy (To Bring You My Love)
White Chalk (White Chalk)
