I did a Google search for "PJ Harvey toronto review" and it appears that the last time PJ Harvey performed live in Toronto was opening for U2 in early 2001 @ The Air Canada Centre and before that performing at The Phoenix Concert Theatre in December 2000. And so after a long, almost 4 year gap, PJ Harvey made a triumphant return to Toronto, back at The Phoenix Concert Theatre, this past Friday. This was an early show as opener Morris Tepper started his set just after 7pm and played an interesting hybrid of roots, blues, and rock music, with hints of punk and weird pop. His raspy vocals reminded me of Bruce Springsteen(or maybe Bry Webb from The Constantines) and he accompanied himself with either acoustic or electric guitar. At times, the melodies went astray, but when the melodies kicked in like they did on the nice rootsy ballad he played at the end(towards the end?) of his set, they were quite nice. Most of the tunes however were more mid-tempo/up-tempo, with varying degrees of weirdness. On one song, Mr. Tepper pranced around his microphone playing his guitar and vocalized at a distance from his microphone. On another song, he vocalized sounds that sounded like a cat. When Mr. Tepper played his acoustic guitar plugged into an amp, his guitar assaults almost sounded electric. I'd be interested in hearing him in a full band setting. Apparently, he's toured extensively with Mr. Frank Black and PJ Harvey, so I'll be interested in hearing more.
I was quite pissed about the long 45-minute wait between the end of Morris Tepper's set and the start of PJ Harvey's set. The crowd was starting to get anxious and every time the music over the PA would stop, or the house lights would flicker, we'd think Polly Jean was going to come out. There were probably 3-4 false alarms but without warning, the music over the PA halted and the house lights dimmed, and Polly Jean and her band came through the backstage door onto the stage to thunderous applause and adoration. Man, it was loud. The excitement in the air was palpable. For sure, I was very excited to finally see the one and only Polly Jean Harvey in the flesh, right in front of me(well, not 'right' in front of me, since I was about 9 rows or so people back from the stage, left of centre). She was dressed in a short tight yellow dress with separate yellow sleeves and black(or maybe dark brown) ankle boots. [This image of herself was on the dress, and their's also a photo of her in the same dress in the current issue of Spin which features Franz Ferdinand on the cover.]Her dark black hair was wispy, falling over her face, almost covering her eyes. The band launched almost suddenly into a driving rendition of the almost-arena sounding "Big Exit" which was thrilling in so many ways: seeing Polly Jean groove to the rhythms, seeing the rest of the band so much into the music themselves, seeing the crowd in a frenzy of excitement, and hearing Polly Jean's wonderfully confident vocals. Brian was also there and he's posted a setlist. As you can see, it was a great of mix of old and new tunes. Highlights for me were "Dress", "Victory" and "50 Foot Queenie" that were wholely satisfying in their punk rock directness. I was disappointed that Polly Jean didn't utilize the electronic fuzzbox gadget on "A Perfect Day Elise" which I believe was used for the original studio version, but even as a conventional "guitar" version, the song still maintained a level of urgency. During the first encore(of two), highlights included the threatening "Meet Ze Monsta" as well as a brooding version of "Down By The Water" which included audience sing-a-long and Polly Jean and the band draped in half light and shadow. PJ Harvey came out for a second encore to perform two more songs, ending the night with the intimate "Is This Desire?" Polly Jean rarely conducted any sort of banter with the audience, except for the occassional 'thank you', but it didn't matter much on a night when it felt like the planets were aligned and that this show at that very moment was the greatest show on the planet. [check out some photos here.]
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