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REVIEWS
FEELINGBURNED @FORUMZ
I was there today. I have had such a polly-filled week what with the concert on Monday and today's concert. I know, I'm spoiled.
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There was a Q & A with fans. They asked pretty standard interview questions. I guess it will be online soon if not already. What else can I tell you? I got one of her guitar picks--Yeah!! It kind of paled in comparison to the concert on Monday but this was a filmed event so it's a whole other monster. The energy was low in the audience and I dare say on stage. I mean she wasn't dragging but it definitely did not have the feel of her real live shows for obvious reasons. we had to fake applause a lot before she even came out and all this other BS. But it was worth it to see her for free.
DAVEO @FORUMZ
The venue was a small sound stage - maybe 300 to 400 people total. They had us 'react' to background music to get crowd shots before she came out. So if the cuts to the crowd look a little goofy in the final edit, it's partly because we weren't even watching Polly at the time (the rest of the goofiness is all us!).
Between each song Polly's would acknowledge the crowd and then her focus would turn immediately toward finding the stage director. They'd get set up for the next song and when the cameras were ready, the stage director would ask for applause and then she'd start playing.
To Bring You My Love was stopped and started as Polly couldn't hear her vocals initially. The down-side to that was that the crowd reacted spontaneously and loudly when she started the first time, whereas the second time it was quiet. Maybe they'll edit them together...
I have to say that the sound in the venue was absolutely amazing. You could really hear every nuance in her voice.
After the 8 songs, she went off and they configured for the Q&A. There were maybe 8 questions total. The one that Polly seemed pleasantly not expecting was the last - 'How do you know when you've written a good song?' - to which she gave a long answer. Watching her answer the questions, she seemed intent on sincerely answering to the questioner directly.
And then she was gone. On a separate note, I talked to someone afterward who got a chance to chat with her at the Frank Black show on Tues night in LA and apparently she said that there was absolutely no tour to follow - these few shows were it! Paris anyone?
FEELINGBURNED @LJ PJHARVEY COMMUNITY
I won tickets to see Pj Harvey Live in central city, california at the nissan live sets.
IT was AMAZING! we were the first 20 people to get into the show and we got really good seats
I was in the third row from the stage [they recorded everything]
I didn't think she would of performed as many songs as she did and that surprised me.
after she was done with performing songs a few [5] or so people were selected to ask pj harvey questions.
Someone asked how she got into the [auto harp] She said she was about 4 when she first discovered it but she didn't buy one until 95 in london, she bought it because it was "old and beautiful" as she described it.
[thats the only question/answer i could remember specifically]
Overall it was amazing.
LYNDSEY @Y!LIVE SETS' BLOG
Hey, whatever happened to that whole "Women In Rock" thing? Nowadays it seems the only ladies on the charts or on magazine covers are Britney and Ashlee and Hannah and whatever other hottie du jour has access to a personal trainer and the latest edition of ProTools software. Phooey, I say!
But you know, even when all the "Women In Rock" hype was at its peak, that was a bit of hogwash, too. Yes, Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos and those other Lilith Fair folkies may have more talent in each of their individual pinky fingers than Britney, Ashlee, and Hannah have in all three of their French-manicured fingers combined, but they still don't really ROCK, per se.
That is why I am so grateful that Miss Polly Jean Harvey exists. The woman came in at #56 on VH1's "Greatest Women In Rock 'N' Roll" countdown a few years ago (sandwiched in between Martha Reeves and Tracy Chapman, oddly), but she's #1 in many a real rock fan's book, and with good reason. Since the early '90s, this mega-talented iconoclast has been doing her own thing, willfully and admirably ignoring every pop/rock trend that's come and gone. PJ is not a "woman in rock." She just plain effin' rocks.
This is why I was so dang excited when it was announced that PJ was doing a Nissan Live Sets performance. It was of only three (count 'em, three) one-woman U.S. concerts she was playing to promote her new album, White Chalk, which made it even more special that the usual already-pretty-damn-special Live Sets. And when I learned that I'd not only get to be one of the 100 or so people attending this exclusive show, but that I'd also get to watch her super-private dress rehearsal, I was so excited I felt like yelling out loud, "Lick my legs! I'm on fire!" (Sorry if that's TMI...)
OK, so I arrived at the dress rehearsal and tried to be as non-intrusive as possible, suppressing my excitement as much as I could. See, Polly is notoriously skittish and shy, so she wanted no photographers or reporters on the closed set. But I'm not a "reporter," right? I'm a blogger! So I proceeded with my coverage. Still, I didn't want to be too obvious, sitting in the front row with my pen and paper--sheesh, I might as well have worn one of those 1950s reporter caps with a card that says "PRESS" tucked into the brim. So I sat quietly way in the back, concealing my smuggled-in notepad and marveling at this rare fly-on-wall opportunity.
The first thing I noticed was that for a woman with such a big voice, big presence, and big legacy, PJ Harvey is disarmingly tiny. Itsy-bitsy little body, lollipop head, pipecleaner-thin alabaster arms. She just looked so small and fragile, especially all alone on the vast Live Sets stage, a stage big enough to accommodate all members in the huge backing bands of past Live Sets acts like Santana, Ryan Adams, and Kelly Clarkson. There she sat alone at her piano like a nervous 5-year-old student at her first recital, with just a few strings of Christmas lights surrounding her like the drooping decorations on Charlie Brown's forlorn Xmas tree.
But then she sang, her voice reverbing and echoing in the near-empty room, and she was 90 pounds of pure dynamite. But still, this was not the big, brash PJ of "50 Foot Queenie" or the turquoise-eyeshadowed, sequined showgirl of past Polly incarnations. Did I mention she was playing a piano? And sometimes that staple of kindergarten music lessons, an autoharp? Of course, if there's anyone who could make an autoharp or upright piano seem sexy and rockin', it's PJ, but suffice it to say the stark and near-acoustic music of the piano-driven White Chalk is a whole new direction for PJ...meaning tonight's Live Sets would be a very unique concert indeed.
Quietly and perfectionistically, with little fanfare, Polly worked her way through the setlist, being a bit fussy about all sorts of technical sound stuff I don't claim to understand, but never in a diva-ish way that annoyed any of the crew. On the contrary, the crew members all seemed in awe of her, eager to meet any of her soft-spoken "demands." She eventually punctuated her practice run with a final shriek of such dolphin-whistle decibel levels, it threatened to shatter every light fixture and camera lens on the set. Whoa. Who would have thought I'd need earplugs for an unplugged show? The range and power of this huge voice, coming out of this petite and seemingly fragile woman, astounded me.
For all the talk of PJ's crippling shyness (some crew members repeatedly voiced concern about how she'd make it through the fan Q&A session), I was surprised by how relaxed she appeared on the set. For instance, after rehearsal, she didn't spend all her downtime hiding in her trailer--she hung out by the snack table, out in the open, in clear view of the diehard fans who'd started lining up for her concert at 4pm. (Her fans were impressively well-behaved, by the way--no one rushed up to her with requests for autographs or stalker-like declarations of true love; instead they just stood there, mouths agape, apparently too awestruck to even move.)
Eventually all those fans filed in, took their seats (further adding to the piano-recital vibe, the evening's performance was a sedated, classy, sit-down affair), and it was time for the show to begin. Director John said to the intimate crowd, "She's hardly doing any shows this year. Do you realize how lucky you are?" Judging from the fans' reactions, yes, they were fully aware of their good fortune.
Then, after one helluva costume change, PJ walked out. Gone was the all-black gothic-schoolmarm outfit she'd been wearing in rehearsal; in its place was a somewhat bizarre, vaguely Elizabethan/Loretta Lynnian look. Yes, she was rocking a puffed-sleeved, floor-sweeping Miss Havisham gown and piles of big black Liz Taylor ringlets (so big, in fact, it was hard for her to get the strap of her autoharp over her head). She looked demented, like a creature from another era or a crazy little girl playing dress-up. I mean this in the best possible way, of course. She looked like a star.
For the next hour, Polly wailed and whispered and cooed and cackled, with nothing complementing her beautiful-but-broken banshee voice except for her piano or her autoharp. It wasn't until the end of the show that a bit of the rockin' Polly of yore came back, on her stark, primitive rendition of "To Bring You My Love"--for which she strapped on an enormous electric guitar that made her look even tinier. But her performance itself, from start to finish, was larger than life.
The hipster audience remained reverent and eerily pindrop-silent throughout--so silent, in fact, that it seemed like they didn't even dare breathe for fear of breaking the night's delicate spell (or fear of blowing flimsy little PJ over). It was only after each number that the fans exhaled and applauded wildly. Polly herself was the chatty one, acting very relaxed and candid during the fan Q&A (probably the most intellectual Live Sets Q&A yet, with a very Inside The Actor's Studio vibe), and delightedly telling the audience, "You're doing a great job with all this clapping and cheering!"
Whether strapping on a guitar or strumming an autoharp like a preschool teacher's aid gone mad, PJ's Live Sets was simply amazing. Why wouldn't we clap and cheer?
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