MUSIC
PJ HARVEY
★★★★
Sidney Myer Music Bowl
January 21
The drum of a procession beats out across the bunker-like pit of the Myer Music Bowl. Men in impeccable black suits march onto the stage; halfway along is Polly Jean, wielding a saxophone like a trophy or weapon, skinny legs jutting beneath an asymmetric, royal purple tunic, head adorned with a mohawk of severe feathers.
The political themes of PJ Harvey's ninth album The Hope Six Demolition Project, released last year, lend themselves well to a conceptual performance.
The band is nine-strong – all male, including long-time Australian collaborator Mick Harvey – and although Harvey herself doesn't pick up a guitar, she's backed by multi-instrumentalists including two percussionists, three keys/synths and a brass section.
The sound is much bigger than the sum of its parts, with the band's deep backing vocals – sung in unison like the demonic chorus of a sci-fi dystopia – providing eerie weight.
From opener Chain of Keys into the war-like discordance of Ministry of Defence, a brutalist frieze rises behind the stage, the light tricking off its bevelled edges in tones of white, purple and gold. At one point Terry Edwards whips out a maddening solo on both bass and alto saxophones simultaneously.
Harvey's piercing vocals provide a contrasting brightness and clarity She speaks only to introduce the band well into the second half of the show, instead using cryptic movements to suggest the role of a queen or prophet. In The Words that Maketh Murder from previous album Let England Shake, she appeals in gestures with black-gloved hands to the audience: "What if I took my problem to the UN?"
Lead single from Hope Six, The Wheel, is met with extended applause, but the simplicity of Rid of Me's 50 Foot Queenie is lost in the cacophony of brass. Still, some of the strongest moments here are from previous material – the sparseness of 1995's To Bring You My Love and the beating melancholy of The Devil sounding somehow larger in their comparative simplicity.
The crowd begs for more after just one encore, but after a 20-song set with the intensity dialled up to 11, they've got their money's worth.
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