The multi-faceted and multi-talented British songwriter, singer, and musician PJ Harvey last toured the USA back in 2017 but I was unable to see her perform live that year due to work obligations. At last, on Sunday, September 15, 2024, I finally had the good fortune to snag tickets to one of her two sold-out shows at Terminal 5, which is located at West 56th Street in Manhattan. The standing-room-only venue was absolutely packed, but I was thrilled to be there. Having arrived a bit early, I was glad to find a spot only a few rows back from the front of the stage: it was great to be able to see Harvey’s facial expressions and pantomime-like moves very clearly. She has an amazingly theatrical presence on stage.
There was no warm-up band for this concert and thus Harvey’s show began promptly at 8:00PM. The band that is accompanying her on this tour includes her producer and friend John Parish on a variety of instruments, James Johnston on violin and other instruments, Giovanni Ferrario on a variety of instruments too, and Jean-Marc Butty on drums and percussion.
Harvey played her lovely new album I Inside the Old Year Dying in its entirety, and she also followed the order of the songs on the album for the first half of the show. She wore a beautiful white cape with black crosses and tree branches painted on it in a pattern that looked like a forest of bare trees. The concert began with the album’s opening cut Prayer at the Gate. During this mesmerizing song Harvey gesticulated her arms in a variety of angular positions while covering her eyes. It was a subdued yet enchanting beginning. The duet with John Parrish on Autumn which followed was also mesmerizing.
Harvey's new album features poetic and evocative lyrics in Dorset dialect like these from the title track: “The beech buds wait. The aish buds wait. The frogs and twoads in lagwood holes and hedgehogs in their leafy ditch, all waiting for His kingdom.” Harvey recently published a book of her poetry called Orlam in Dorset vernacular and it seems to have strongly influenced her lyrics on this new album. After the 12 cuts from the I Inside the Old Year Dying album were complete, Harvey walked off stage while the band played the song The Coulour of the Earth by themselves.
Harvey returned to the stage without the cape and thereafter performed in a plain white dress with hoops at the bottom. She moved effortlessly in this white dress and her shiny white boots through some of her older catalogue of 12 more songs. I loved the large shadows that were projected onto the backdrop of the stage as Harvey and her band played the song The Garden. This emphasized the theatrical quality of Harvey’s concert and performing style. There were also stark projections behind the band throughout the show that featured paint peeling off a wall, barbed wire on colored backgrounds, and other abstract and expressionist images. Perhaps my favorite moment of the evening was when she played her great anti-war song The Glorious Land which is off her masterpiece album Let England Shake. The crowd was supercharged to see Harvey from the start, but everyone in attendance really started to gyrate when Harvey started playing her classics Man-Size and Dress. She closed the concert with To Bring You My Love from the album of the same name.
PJ Harvey's live show was fantastic, and her Fall US Tour continues through October 14.
All photos and video in this story are by Al Nigrin.
