CONFESSION: My feet are shrinking or something. There are two or three pairs of shoes, including these, that have suddenly loosened, or something. Last night M & I took the BART thing to San Francisco, to see Polly Jean Harvey perform with John Parish at The Warfield. It was a wonderful show, save the filthy stinking hippie sitting next to M (we took balcony seats just to avoid that sort of thing – it is, it seems, inescapable – also, do people smoke pot at all shows at The Warfield or was it just this one, even in balcony seats? Not that I take issue with it in general, but these folks were ultra attention whore-y about it).
While it was almost radically different from her solo shows (this tour is for their new album, A Woman A Man Walked By, and only songs from their two albums were performed), the constancy of her voice and onstage presence remain the same. My favorite part of the show was when the lights went completely black, the band started to play Taut and as the lights flickered back on erratically, PJ was revealed as a tiny black puddle center stage, curled into a tight little ball and as her voice undulated with the lyrics so did her body, and as she tore into the near-vulgar line “Jesus save me,” she clawed her way toward the mic stand, rocking back and forth on her knees and then finally standing, barefoot. It was brilliant and so incredibly creepy. She danced around like an undead gypsy ballerina throughout the whole show, and of course the performance for the title track of the new album was just perfect.
Also? I want her hair. What?!
