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REVIEWS
NOTAPRETTYBOY @FORUMZ
OK, I'm back from the show, and decided to throw random impressions before they fade away... I may or may not come back to correct this post if my mind decides to put some structure to these memories.
The mood started overwhelming you as soon as you entered the theater, as the piano and other accessories were already set on the stage and the little lights were all on, giving a soft feeling of intimacy an hour before peej showed up.
YES! I'm on the first row. right in the middle. This was: the first time I was sitting on the first row of a PJ Harvey show. The first time I was sitting at all, actually, at one of her shows. The first time I was seeing her completely solo for the whole performance too. Wow. Lots of first times. It'll take some time to sink in.
She was wearing a black dress, with silver sparkling bits on the bottom.
At some point when she played guitar the fake insect she had in her hair started to get loose, and some of her hair got in front of her face. She asked for some help with her hair and told us that, since she doesn't have a mirror, she never can tell if it looks funny or not and only notices that something's wrong when the hair start flying in her face.
As the guy left the stage after fixing her hair, she said she should ask him to come back with a mirror, and when she came back for the first encore she showed us the bottom of her dress saying she hadn't remembered there already were lots of mirrors on her.
She was in a great mood actually. joking and smiling the whole time. she said she tried some of the seats we were on earlier that day, and said they were some of the most comfortable she's been in, and if she was sitting there she might doze off, even in front of her own show.
The highligths of the show, for everyone, were probably Nina (she introduced it saying she realized only years after having written it that it was one of her favourite songs) and Down By the Water, that I had never seen her perform displaying so much emotion and grief... in her previous shows she had almost turned it into a joyful song, so this was really completely different and very moving.
For me, personal highlights included 'Silence' which was so strong and beautiful I can still hear it echo in the whole room, and 'Big Exit', that she really changed from its lush Stories context to turn it into a raw and less melodic version and in my opinion it works amazingly well that way.
The real disappointment, for me, was 'White Chalk'. God knows why this was the one sacrifice in a nearly flawless show. she hit the wrong piano keys, her voice went out of tune a couple of time, and the harmonica hit some wrong keys too. Too bad, I was really looking forward to that one, but nothing is perfect, I guess.
All in all, a truly beautiful performance. Well worth the *cough cough* price.
Oh, and one last word about the pathetic "merchandise booth": there, you could purchase, for a mere 5 euros, a set of sticker gloriously celebrating the release of.. Uh Huh Her. There was also a set of pins... for Uh Huh Her.
There was also a White Chalk design, mind you: one fugly long sleeve black t-shirt that looks like some bootleg with an ironed-on cover art in front. Those looked like the one-size concert t-shirts you got in the 90s. Next to the very-well designed Uh Huh Her t-shirt (that I think is still for sale on the site) this looked really sad.
OK, this wasn't a regular tour so this was probably thrown together at the last minute, maybe on the same day, but I tend to think no merchandise at all would have been better than that.
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