PJ Harvey
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Following the Steve Albini-produced, de rigueur muted vocals on Rid of Me, Harvey’s singing became a primary focus on her latest record. Her voice navigates broader turf and is more powerful and assured in its pinpoint assault. Aglow with supreme confidence, her performance at the Vic last Saturday seized upon the strides made on the new album and blew them up larger than life. Able to move freely across the stage, Harvey offered a dramatic display of sheer sensuality and crippling emotion. The bluesy quality of the band–more in feeling than form–interacted with Harvey’s physical gestures and singing to create a continuously flowing, nearly primordial expression. Dressed in a slight flowered dress and unwieldy high heels and sporting wildly exaggerated makeup–fake eyelashes capped by globs of gold sequins that seemed to jut out inches from her face–she exuded a grand, somewhat vampish theatricality.
Consumed by the music, Harvey was clearly reveling in her performance. Arms flapping, neck bobbing, and haunch strutting, Harvey’s birdlike movements were distorted by dramatic lighting–crisscrossing spots, explosive shards of color, and torch-singing spotlights–redolent of the heavy atmosphere usually reserved for Diamanda Galas. Early in the set she propped a colorful stuffed parrot on her mike stand; it seemed to inspire her. Between songs she receded into a shy woman, demurely smiling and quietly appreciative. She never broke her spell with meaningless niceties aimed at the screaming crowd–no “How ya doing?” here. While her distinctive guitar playing may have been missed, her astonishing visual display more than compensated; it was nothing short of breathtaking.
