:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 ::

Gig review: PJ Harvey, Bristol Colston Hall, 24.09.07

You know this is going to be an usual show before anything actually happens. There is no support act. The bar packed with people wearing colourful wool and linen. The auditorium filled with haunting stripped down vocals dubs. And the backline on the stage features no drums, just a centre stage guitar rig (Orange head and cab and Vox AC50), a wooden chair to the back, a couple of wooden cheeked keyboards/synths to the right, and a piano to the left with a strange collection of ornaments perched on top. The whole collection is crapped in fairy lights. The piano stool has a huge puffy sheepskin cover. It all screams gypsy chic before Polly even takes to the stage in head to toe black, ankle length gypsy skirt with sequined train, puffy shouldered Victorian bodice, orange flowers/leaves in her naturally curled hair, and multi-strapped heels. She seems more comfortable, more at home, and more playful that I have ever seen her before. She flashes her legs several times when sitting down and comments on the importance of positioning correctly to play the auto-harp, then spreads her legs, hoicks her skirt right up, and stretches her feet out to reach her pedals with a childlike lack of embarrassment.

When she stumbles over singing a song about a/her mother, she blurts, "Aww, fuck it," then provides a quick rendition of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, "Where's your mama gone? / Where's your mama gone? / Where's your marbles gone?" and ends up on her knees, forehead on a monitor wedge, banging her fists on the stage, all to much laughter and applause. She converses with the audience a lot more than usual too, and has to ask to borrow a compact at one point as she has got a fly in her eye. This one woman show has the audience absolutely eating out of her hand. The whole thing seems more intimate than even the tiny Fleece and Firkin gigs back in '96.

The sound mix is not great, I can hear levels being adjusted as things go on, but that’s always to be expected with one- two-off gigs rather than tours. The venue is just small enough that even sat towards the back you can still hear some direct sound from the stage, so the AM-radio like crackling, band-limited, distorted vocal effects that are used sound as if they are coming from the side walls. I can see people’s heads turning to check.

Like the new single, When Under Ether, the new material is much more stripped down than anything she has released previously. Five or six tracks from the new album (White Chalk, released the same day) are played. Mountain the mot atmospheric and memorable, and Devil interestingly accompanied by a clicking metronome. The album has been produced by long time collaborator John Parish, who is in the audience, and it shares the sparse arrangements of his solo work, such as Rosie OST, How Animals Move, and Once Upon A Little Time. Songs from all of the PJ Harvey albums get this stripped down treatment. Strangely, the only album missing from the set list is the previous Harvey/Parish collaboration project Dance Hall At Louse Point. Some songs have been heard in similar formats before, such as the Rid of Me tracks included on the 4-Track Demos album, and the 4-track demos of Dry included with the initial release. Songs like Shame and Big Exit have a new lease of life in this form, it would be great to hear demo material from the more recent albums included on another compilation, or released as B-sides. In fact, I'd love to get my hands on a bootleg of this gig, and listen to it again; mistakes, banter, heckling and all. Its an interesting new direction and I love where it's going. Especially if we can still hear the classic guitar wielding, growling Polly in stripped down form somewhere too.

Labels: PJH, Review

:: Dan 25.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post]    ::
...

Links to this post:

<\$BlogBacklinkControl\$> <\$BlogBacklinkTitle\$> <\$BlogBacklinkDeleteIcon\$>

<\$BlogBacklinkSnippet\$>
posted by <\$BlogBacklinkAuthor\$> \@ <\$BlogBacklinkDateTime\$>

<\$BlogItemBacklinkCreate\$>