As tens of thousands of revelers once again filled Grant Park for the Blues Festival over the weekend, precious little on the bill there held that kind of promise -- or threat. For those kinds of thrills and chills, you had to see PJ Harvey and John Parish at the Riviera Theatre Friday night.
To an even greater degree than on her own stellar albums, British singer Polly Jean Harvey has felt free to inhabit a wide range of characters struggling with all manner of crises on the two discs she's made with multi-instrumentalist Parish: "Dance Hall at Louse Point" (1996) and the recent "A Woman a Man Walked By."
Rather than shouldering all of
the songwriting burden, in this
collaboration, Harvey crafts the
vocals and lyrics based on
inspiration from Parish's music. And
her at-times wordless singing is
much more subtle, nuanced and
alternately beautiful and harrowing.
While some longtime fans may have
been disappointed that Friday's set
list shorted the rest of Harvey's
rich catalog in favor of the two
albums with Parish, the rewarding
range of her singing and the
intensity of her performance were
undeniable, whether she was gliding
through entrancingly moody tracks
such as "Black Hearted Love" and
"Rope Bridge Crossing" at the start
of the night, or pounding through
furious stompers like the Captain
Beefheart homage "Pig Will Not,"
which closed the set proper
preceding the well-deserved encore.
The backing group in fact included a Beefheart alum, bassist and keyboardist Eric Drew Feldman, in addition to Jean-Marc Butty on drums and Giovanni Ferrario on guitar. As with the best of the Captain and his Magic Band, Harvey, Parish and their group created a merger of blues and rock that was both futuristic and timeless.
The forlorn melodies and fractured grooves were an ideal setting for Harvey's emotional vocals and theatrical delivery. And if the latter was less flamboyant than during the height of the alternative era, it was dramatic nonetheless.
During a fierce version of "Taut," Harvey started out on her knees as if in prayer, and wound up stalking the stage like a woman possessed. "Save me, Jesus!" she screamed. And you had to hope He heard her.