Fans of British indie-rock artist PJ Harvey’s older work had to wait for it, in the Australian leg of her current tour.
Presented at the Forecourt of Sydney Opera House, this was the third leg in her four-venue Australian tour. It is nearly a decade since the multiple-Grammy nominated PJ Harvey has played to Australian fans, and she continues to surprise and challenge.
For the first hour of the performance Harvey didn’t speak to the audience – in fact she barely acknowledged her adorning fans. Rather, she was caught in an almost trance-like mystic state, as if emerging from the fields of Stonehenge.
The focus of this first set was on work from her latest album, I Inside the Old Year Dying (2023), including a few songs in a Dorset dialect she learned as a child. She opened with ‘Prayer at the Gate’ in a lilting high register, commanding in a kind of pastoral stillness, eventually becoming more theatrical in her gestures – dancing and communing with an energy from the natural world in songs such as ‘Seem an I’.
The almost pregnant pauses between songs, as Harvey was fitted with another instrument by stage hands, were filled with the toll of bells, and the sounds of wild animals and birds, rather than her voice.
Needless to say, that constant shuffle between instruments was testament to her incredible skill as a musician.
To further set this scene, it’s necessary to pay tribute to the lighting and staging for the performance, which was moody, slightly ethereal and brilliant. Harvey wore a cape-like costume – a kind of robe of a high priestess – hand painted with trees, while the backdrop was a knotty twist of branches.
It was a bewitching fantasy and, while far from zesty and upbeat, it was a polished vision that she presented. This first half was clearly more performance than ‘concert’, and the pace and energy was a little dampened, and slightly indulgent, despite being quite beautiful.
Perhaps its intimacy would have been better suited inside the Opera House, rather than the more casual arena of the Forecourt.
What it did do, however, was underscore Harvey’s unique vernacular as a performing artist, and her capacity to extend her storytelling through her music.
While she made a brief costume change, her four backing musicians moved centre stage to perform a kind of sea shanty jig, ‘The Colour of the Earth’, from her 2011 album, Let England Shake. It felt like an odd transition.
Three-quarters into the set, Harvey finally shed her tree cape, and got down to some of her older work, welcomed by the crowd gathered. Returning with ‘The Glorious Land’ while playing the guitar, she then moved to the autoharp for ‘The Words That Maketh’.
The energy lifted, as did Harvey’s, and her physical movement on stage was bold and confident. The crowd loved her in ‘rocker mode’.
The hits eventually came with plenty of rock attitude with ’50ft Queenie’ and early-mid ‘90s favourites ‘Rid of Me’, ‘Man-Size’, ‘Dress’ and ‘Downsized’. A highlight was her duet with her longtime collaborator John Parrish, ‘Black Hearted Love’ (2009).
Unlike the newer pieces performed earlier, her later work was sung at a deeper register accompanied by Harvey’s electric guitar and a gritty, gutsy zest. It was only at 9.15pm (the performance started at 8pm) that Harvey uttered her first words, “thank you”, and introduced her incredible band.
PJ Harvey has made a name for being unpredictable and challenging fans. This concert was no different. Her music and her body were one in this performance, and the breadth of her talent is immense. Overall, this concert could disappoint. But for true fans of Harvey and her niche creativity, this performance embraced that constantly evolving next chapter of her discography.
PJ Harvey played at Sydney Opera House Forecourt on 13 March 2025, the penultimate leg of her Australian tour before performing in Brisbane on 15 March, then heading to Japan for further shows.
