– PJ Harvey – Live at Green Man Festival 2017 – August 20, 2017 – BBC 6 Music –
PJ Harvey to end this long holiday weekend (well, for us in the States anyway). From a recent re-broadcast, via the 2017 Green Man Festival, a truly stand-out concert.
Going through my past posts, I realize I’ve been running either a concert or a session from PJ Harvey almost every year now. I confess she is a particular favorite and it is my personal commitment to make as many people aware of this gifted artist as possible. Not that I make a whole lot of difference, but it’s nice to be able to use this forum to play favorites whenever I can.
It is something about the visceral quality of her writing that makes her work an imperative to absorb. All performance is about achieving one level of truth or another – expression by words with music lends a considerable amount of weight to the overall impression. And perhaps it’s because PJ Harvey is proficient in so many instruments they lend themselves as emotional exclamation points along the way. You don’t (I never have) met a PJ Harvey performance or song with anything remotely resembling indifference – it’s not what she’s about – it’s going back to her beginnings that her music has always demanded attention, which you find yourself gladly handing over anyway because she has a habit of hitting so many receptive chords.
And maybe its hitting all the receptive chords that supports the fact the human condition is universal. We all go through much the same set of emotions. It’s just that some are more comfortable expressing those hidden, disturbing bits than others.
And that’s why we have PJ Harvey and we always will. She’s essential.
Back to work tomorrow America!
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