When Miss Polly Jean Harvey last visited Perth back in 2004, it was with her band (comprising of drummer Rob Ellis, Dingo on bass and Josh Klinghoffer on guitar), and in promotion of her record Uh Huh Her. The record was an aggressive and confronting one (even by PJ Harvey standards) and seemed by comparison to the material of tonight’s show, worlds away. Harvey’s latest record is White Chalk, a stripped down affair that sees her primarily at the piano singing intimately, almost vulnerably and with sparse instrumental accompaniment in lieu of distortion-laden guitars. In fitting with the White Chalk aesthetic, Harvey’s show at the Concert Hall was sans band and allowed the audience to see her music in a stripped back and skeletal form. Even the stage setting had an incredibly personal touch, as if we had stepped into Harvey’s music room. An old upright piano sat on the stage adorned with what appeared to be little figures of farm animals and an ageing metronome whilst the amplifiers were resplendent in glowing fairy lights.  

Opener Mick Harvey (not related) of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fame, played a strong set consisting of many PJ Harvey unreleased tracks. Having produced several of Harvey’s albums and worked closely with her, Harvey admitted that PJ Harvey often sent him her demos. His lovingly performed renditions of her songs highlighted the closeness of the pair and were a fitting opener for Miss Harvey’s set. After a short interval, the audience took their seats and the air was filled with excitement.

The lights dimmed and the crowd roared as the petite Miss PJ Harvey walked onto the stage dressed in a black Victorian gown (not unlike the one she is wearing on White Chalk’s album cover) trimmed with black sparkles and with her hair immaculately coiffed. Shyly taking her guitar she launched into the raucous blues lick of “To Bring You My Love”, the veneer of introversion quickly removed and followed with another track from To Bring You My Love, “Send His Love To Me”. After playing these two crowd pleasers, Harvey made the move to the piano to play her new and consequently more unfamiliar material from White Chalk. Beginning with the opening swirl of the record’s first single, “When Under Ether”, it was clear that Harvey was comfortable with her new found position behind the piano. In the following track, White Chalk’s opener “The Devil”, Harvey employed the metronome as an accompaniment device, its constant click driving the motion of this urgent song. After playing the vocal delay-laden “White Chalk”, PJ made the move back to guitar with the old favourite, “Man Size” from Rid of Me. After a little spiel about her songwriting approach and her use of a “cheesy” drum machine on her demos, she confidently started up the aforementioned machine for a new take on Is This Desire?’s haunting “Angelene”. The subsequent songs saw her focused on the drum machine and the pseudo-electronica that makes up some of the material on Is This Desire?, even allowing Harvey to have a dance that recalled the childish awkwardness of her contemporary, Björk. In this segment the audience was also treated to the B-side “Nina in Ecstasy” which featured on the single of “The Wind” from the same album. After an attempt to return to the piano to play more material from White Chalk that ended in giggling when someone in the audience appeared to sneeze on cue, Harvey felt it best to move back to the guitar so she could compose herself. Launching into the brutal “Snake” was quite the change in mood from giggling schoolgirl to all the fury of a woman scorned and definitely took the audience out of their comfort zones. After treating the audience to a special rendition of her 1996 hit “Down By The Water” on the broken harp and then “Grow Grow Grow” from White Chalk, Harvey returned to the piano to resume “The Mountain” and the gorgeous “Silence” (both also from White Chalk) to conclude her set. 

At the impassioned urgency of her fans, PJ Harvey returned to the stage with the other Harvey (Mick) on piano for a wonderful encore that included the rarely performed and beautifully stark “The River” from Is This Desire?, the pleading “C’mon Billy” from To Bring You My Love and “The Piano” from White Chalk. After bidding adieu to Mick Harvey, (PJ) Harvey closed on the acoustic guitar with Uh Huh Her’s “Desperate Kingdom of Love”, a soothing and resolving comedown to a night of high emotion and lyrical intensity.

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