Alt/punk/art rock icon PJ Harvey might’ve looked out of place among the towering gums and native flora of Kings Park’s botanical gardens– not to mention the thousands of picnic blankets and content couples sipping drinks– but Harvey has never wanted to play to type. In fact, the subject of her new tour– her latest album, I Inside The Old Year Dying– is intentionally against-type. She painstakingly cultivated new modes of singing for herself by having collaborators John Parish and Flood wean her off what she calls her “PJ Harvey voice”. The result is a folkloric fantasy– or something more spacey and new age, it’s hard to say, with its mix of warped recordings, Dorset dialect, airy synths, and peanut butter & banana sandwiches.
Playing into this rare mix of the natural and the unnatural, Harvey’s openers were the mystically-modern Guzheng artist Mindy Meng Wang, and the delicately-experimental guitarist Mick Turner. Both played charmingly subdued sets, allowing their unique styles to seep into the subconscious and build a surreal, ethereal atmosphere as the odd mix of long-haired rockers, retirees, and alt-fashionistas milled about the gardens for a seat, a beer, or a box of hot food. By the time the sun set, a quiet union came over the crowd, they were psychically ready for the show to come.
At dusk, Polly Jean Harvey glided on stage in a chalky, creezey gown like a fallen milk flower and zang “Prayer at the Gate”. Few, if any, understood its Dorsetian lyrics– “and drisk shrouded in its cloak. Holway, river, brook and oak.”– but they were spellbound all the same. As a physical performer, Harvey is equally elegantly mysterious. As she moved through the second half of “Autumn Term”, she hunched her back and crept around the stage as she silently screeched along to the song’s distorted recordings of children’s voices. It was chilling.
Harvey had complete control over the crowd, so when she moved through I Inside The Old Year Dying to her punk rock anthems “50ft Queenie” and “Mansized”, they shook off the trance and were ready to dance. They were jumping up and down, headbanging, literally falling over themselves, and glad to do it. Then, as easily as before, she calmed the crowd and bewitched with “The Desperate Kingdom of Love”, singing a heartbreakingly beautiful rendition filled with new meaning by the lower register of her age– “Oh love, you were a sickly child, and how the wind knocked you down.”
If it had ended there, the audience would have left in a daze, wordlessly wandering through the ancient forest and looking up at the stars. But of course, they didn’t want it to end, so when they had clapped, cheered, and the band had bowed their way off stage, the people kept clapping. Clapping at no one– “Come on…” someone said– until PJ Harvey appeared once more for an encore. They played “C’mon Billy” then “White Chalk”, where she got her instruments mixed up and jokingly apologised– this was the only moment that she was anything less than a mythical figure, and it was like a snap of the fingers that broke the spell and let the pleased event goers march off into the night.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
PJ Harvey appeared as part of the Perth Festival – which ran from 7th February to 2nd March 2025. For more information head to the official website
