Music for Trees: PJ Harvey at the Greek Theatre

PJ Harvey’s return to North America saw her playing songs off 2023’s I Inside The Old Year Dying, her most recent album, which for those expecting the heavy, knock around sound of Steve Albini-produced Rid of Me, were in for a softer, more ambient and touching treat.

The album cover of this 2023 effort visual communicates the sound, a slender twig made whole by its shadow, the image is minimalist and fragile, similar to the music but the music has a fuller element, as if you’re riding a wave from start to finish of every song. Hearing this in the heart of Griffith Park, surrounded by giant trees on either side which create a force field so that the music is for only those in the theatre’s arms, gave the evening a sort of contact high we’d feel with every song.

related: Dangerously Artsy- Geneva Jacuzzi at The Lodge Room

PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey

You felt in these songs a primal connection to nature, which PJ Harvey embodied this night with her long white dress. For those that were itching to hear her more punk rock material, like myself, we had to wait a little bit but it was well worth it to hear stirring, badass punk barrages like “50ft Queenie” and “Man-Size”. This batch of her set really fleshed her onstage persona out, showing an older dimension to her endless depth. THe audience was only taken deeper into the world of PJ Harvey with her infamous ode to a woman that drowned the daughter she gave birth to. PJ Harvey’s music, better than any of her fellow iconic songstresses, is able to capture the unconscious forces that pull women in various chaotic directions. She is able to mold that wild spirit then into powerful poetry that men can only attempt to understand.

PJ Harvey, in her music and in her performance, represents two polar attributes. Primal power and elegant poise, nature and etiquitte, strength and fragility, quiet and noise. I don’t have a preference which PJ Harvey I will be getting in any given song because every passage presents shades of every PJ Harvey throughout the years, from the past until now.

related: Tonic Truth and Collective Consciousness- Kim Gordon at Ventura Music Hall

PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey

Here is the setlist:

  1. Prayer at the Gate
  2. Autumn Term
  3. Lwonesome Tonight
  4. Seem an I
  5. The Nether-Edge
  6. I Inside the Old Year Dying
  7. All Souls
  8. A Child’s Question, August
  9. I Inside the Old I Dying
  10. August
  11. A Child’s Question, July
  12. A Noiseless Noise
  13. The Colour of the Earth (band only)
  14. The Glorious Land
  15. The Words That Maketh Murder
  16. 50ft Queenie
  17. Black Hearted Love (PJ Harvey & John Parish cover)
  18. The Garden
  19. The Desperate Kingdom of Love
  20. Man-Size
  21. Dress
  22. Down by the Water
  23. To Bring You My Love
  24. C’mon Billy
  25. White Chalk

Words by: Rob Shepyer

Photos by: Jessica Moncrief

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