LIVE: P J HARVEY – Fremantle, 17 January, 2017

Shane | 18 January 2017 | Reply

LIVE: P J HARVEY – Fremantle, 17 January, 2017
Fremantle Arts Centre
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Stuart McKay

You’ve got to have serious confidence in your latest album to play it – every song – to the detriment of many of your more well known tracks, but Polly Jean Harvey MBE is an enigmatic artist like few others.

Harvey and her multi-instrumentalist band (including ex-Bad Seed Mick Harvey and long-time collaborator John Parish) march onstage – beating drums, honking saxes, and a violin harping – and launch into the album The Hope Six Demolition Project.

It’s a story worthy of publicity – the Washington DC Hope VI program of replacing run-down housing with something nicer, left many of the original residents unable to afford the new accommodation – Dollar Dollar, indeed.

P J Harvey’s art is a rare thing in these over-sanitised, autotuned times. Spartan like German cabaret, catchily melodic exactly like pop radio is not, with two static and one occasional drumkits giving the sound a primal and magnetic Bo Diddley/ Adam & the Ants/ Delta Blues/ dark gospel feel that is hypnotically appealing. If belief is faith, and faith is religion, then this is the gospel according to Harvey, and her allure is laid bare as she tells her complete story of the Demolition of low-income housing for greed, with just a few old favourites sprinkled throughout for good measure.

Of course, many of the crowd don’t give a damn – they want to hear Polly ramp up her guitar… but they will be disappointed tonight, as she wields only a saxophone, and in fact barely talks – her words are mostly sung tonight, not spoken – apart from introducing her band and saying some encore thanks.

[Show picture list]

There is a surf guitar feel to The Words That Maketh Murder, a Pink Floyd vibe to Dollar Dollar, a shimmy shimmy shake to 50 Foot Queenie, a palpably electrifying excitement through the crowd when Harvey intones the “big fish little fish swimming in the water” part of Down By The Water, and the dark Crossroads fervour of To Bring You My Love – but mostly she is PJ Harvey, through and through, and when her band march to the front of the stage to finish their main set as they started it, Harvey’s mesmeric allure is assured.

There’s a feisty encore where Harvey transforms Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited into alt rock, and Is This Desire?’s bleeding heart is bared for all to see in what must have been an emotionally cathartic performance for all the players.

Fittingly, P J Harvey delivered art at the Fremantle Arts Centre in a raw and emotional performance that even those hoping for more of a ‘greatest hits’ show couldn’t help but be moved by. She is, and shall always remain, beholden to no-one – not even her audience – yet somehow in not giving them what they thought they wanted, she gave them what they most needed: music with a social, environmental and artistic conscience.

Set List:
Chain of Keys
The Ministry of Defence
The Community of Hope
The Orange Monkey
A Line in the Sand
Let England Shake
The Words That Maketh Murder
The Glorious Land
Medicinals
When Under Ether
Dollar, Dollar
The Devil
The Wheel
The Ministry of Social Affairs
50ft Queenie
Down by the Water
To Bring You My Love
River Anacostia