PJ Harvey at Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin

After the longest break between albums in her career, since the 2016 release of The Hope Six Demolition Project, in April 2023 PJ Harvey announced her tenth album, I Inside the Old Year Dying for a July 2023 release. In a press statement, she also said the album took many years to finish and that it was a difficult album to make because it took a long time to find its strongest form. In June 2023 PJ Harvey also announced a 26-date UK and European tour in support of the album for later in the year. Two concerts were to be held in each of the thirteen cities, beginning on 22nd September in Dublin and ending on 31st October in Oslo.

Following the critical and commercial success of the I Inside the Old Year Dying album in the year since then, in the summer of 2024, PJ Harvey returned to perform a second-leg promotion of the album at a total of twenty music festivals across Europe, beginning on 1st June at Primavera Sound in Barcelona and ending this weekend on 25th August at Rock en Seine in Paris. She came to Berlin on 13th August to play at the Spandau Zitadelle, a restored medieval castle and an excellent venue for such a concert performance.

In what was also perfect summer weather in Berlin, as the daylight faded, first on stage in the large but still crowded courtyard of the Zitadelle was the support act Bendik Giske, a Norwegian jazz and improvisation musician who is collectively considered in the musical press as an artist that manages to explore the range of possibilities of the saxophone while also integrating breathing into his performances. The unique eccentricity of the artist was certainly befitting of a PJ Harvey support slot, so one could consider both of them creatively independent but also kindred spirits on a certain level at least.

PJ Harvey and her band serenely arrived on stage as the fading day was now surrendering to the night. Although not apparent at the time, the concert set list was divided into two sets, although in a very seamless and initially subliminal way. The first eight songs of the set were all taken from the recent album I Inside the Old Year Dying and played chronologically, perhaps hinting at some narrative thread within the album. After spending so much time in making and perfecting it before release, as well as now being undoubtedly happy with the finished result, the uncompromising perfectionism of this new work also brings one Kate Bush to mind. This was apparent on stage in song interludes where Polly Jean (PJ Harvey) would be dancing freely with the air of mysticism that draws allusions to the expressiveness of a Kate Bush performance, both artists fully understanding the importance of theatrical expression and choreography to enhance a live audience experience.

The second half of the show extrapolated ten songs from the rest of her 33-year career and ten albums. Longer-term acolytes of the PJ Harvey oeuvre would be forgiven for thinking that the set list seemed to be taking her career in reverse as she then followed with three tracks from Let England Shake, the 2011 album that won her a second Mercury Music Prize, following her 2001 win for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (so far the only artist to win the award twice alongside her two other Mercury nominations, eight BRIT Award nominations, and eight Grammy nods). However, no songs were performed from the aforementioned and celebrated earlier album. However, one song of conspicuous intrigue in the set was the inclusion of a version of “Black Hearted Love” from the more recent of the two albums she has collaborated on with John Parish, A Woman a Man Walked By from 2009, a rare outing for this song at one of her solo concerts. However, after an effectively hypnotic and dreamily ambient set of these later songs, towards the end of the show, it was almost like she wanted to remind the audience where she came from as he performed the well-known rockier and up-tempo numbers from her early career in the 1990s that included the debut album Dry with the song “Dress”, her very first single, and “Man-Size” from Rid Of Me, her second album. She then ended the set with two songs from the also ubiquitously popular album To Bring You My Love: “Down by the Water” and the title track.

Known for being a genuinely shy, unassuming, and reserved person, using her musical artistry for her expression, before the last songs PJ Harvey still took time to introduce her band and also thank the crowd for what was a wonderful evening. She and her band then returned for an encore of one last song which was the title track of her 2007 album White Chalk, an album more in keeping with the mood of her later work, including her most recent album, therefore ending the concert in the same solipsist beauty and omnipresent melancholy that conjures up the mood of most of her music from the last twenty years.

A PJ Harvey concert is not one where its audience is waiting for that singular hit because she hasn’t had one of that magnitude. It’s more in the esoteric classic album tracks, the hope that she will play a favourite track from someone’s favourite album or one of their other favourite albums. For the old audience, they may get nostalgic for her early career, and for those who joined later a favourite track from their own PJ Harvey onboarding period. Her songs are timeless, and multi-faceted works, progressively moving within the foundations of classic musical genres’ tectonic plates, which is why her albums throughout the years have been considered musical hybrids, and through her solo work and collaborations have embraced styles termed as such: alternative rock, indie rock, punk blues, punk rock, grunge, blues rock, trip-hop, electronic rock, electronica, folk rock, lo-fi, chamber folk, experimental rock, post-punk, and neofolk, the last musical term associated with her most recent album.

Furthermore, a PJ Harvey concert is unusual in that the packed-out crowd can be at once excitedly anticipating while also silently attentive. This is an artist who has paradoxically captivated an audience with muted respect as well as tenacious devotion. As her audience base has continued to grow and commanded the larger venues, none of the rapport and intimacy appears to be lost. Whatever she chooses to play, the audience will still be happy and enthusiastically attentive. If this resonates as authentically as it seems apparent then the eight new songs from 2023’s I Inside the Old Year Dying have already seamlessly embedded themselves with the earlier songs, becoming just as much part of the mastery of her classic sound and performance.

After more outdoor shows in the UK and the final concert of the current European outdoor festival tour in Paris this Sunday, PJ Harvey will finally give her North American fans the chance to see her again when she tours the United States and Canada in September and October 2024 in support of the most recent album and other undoubted highlights. All this from an already 33-year career in which it is unanimously agreed that she has never released a bad or even mediocre album, rightly earning her the fully deserved respect of her peers, contemporaries, critics, fans, and audience on nights such as this one in Berlin, a night for the memory box.