The band PJ Harvey resented touring with: “It was a very scary time”
Recently, I saw PJ Harvey perform live for the first time, it was raining. Big, terrifying gushes of torrential rain, falling without judgment, nearly flooded the astro turf that’d been laid out for the main stage at Primavera Festival in Barcelona.
Despite the storm, the English singer-songwriter captivated a huge audience, most of whom hadn’t even prepared for the shock weather. Together, we watched on, soaked and dithering to the core, as she cut a hypnotic presence on stage, building and bending songs to her will in a floaty, long-sleeved dress that looked equally as drenched as we felt.
Harvey released her debut album, aptly named Dry, in 1992, meaning that she had over three decades to perfect this stage presence. Some three years later, in 1995, Harvey would learn much about her skills as a live performer the hard way.
Alongside Veruca Salt, Harvey went on tour with the alternative rock band Live. At the time, she was focusing on the theatrics of her act, experimenting with lighting and stage design and various tricks to balloon her musical offering until it became, even to the woman who had written the songs, unrecognisable beneath the swollen spectacle.
The conditions of her support slot with Live necessitated this. With Live, Harvey recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone, “We had a 40-minute section and had to perform in a very different way, because the crowd wasn’t there to see us.”
Live shows were intense, with Ed Kowalczyk’s steely gaze and spiritual lyricism stirring up an intense, evocative emotional experience. In comparison to that, Harvey knew that she couldn’t just, for example, “play four minutes of ‘Lying in the Sun’, a very dirgy, low, low song [because] we would have just gotten booed off stage.”
It was nothing against Harvey’s act, but the fact of the matter was that fans had paid money to see Live; her act was relegated to infinitely less importance. Like any of us, Harvey came to resent the band for this reason: “It’s very strange what a tour like that does to your head,” she recalled.
Harvey spent each night watching Live’s performance intently, doing mental maths: “What am I doing wrong? Why aren’t people working themselves into some kind of euphoria every time I play?” were just a few of the questions she tortured herself with at the time.
Therefore, her style began to bear the same hallmarks as Live, and she soon became obsessed with performance details. In the room, fans might’ve benefitted from such reshuffled priorities, but elsewhere, the music suggested: “I’d forgotten about the music somewhere,” she admitted.
At 26 years old, it was easy “to be lowered into that kind of frame of mind. It was a very scary time,” Harvey remembered. However, if any performer had the strength and determination to shake off the shawl of misguided creative direction, it was the ‘This is Love’ singer.
Back to me, in Spain, in the rain. I was hypnotised by her performance not because of the spectacle around her, but because of the soul in her hands, the slow, self-assured flick of a wrist, the gentle grace of her silhouette. We can thank Live for that.
