PJ Harvey & John Parish -- Live

A couple of days ago (on Thursday night, to be precise), Heavy Soil was fortunate enough to witness the musicmaking of Ms PJ Harvey and Mr J Parish (and band), in Oxford Brookes Student Union. Take a glance at the following video, courtesy of petemanning1975, for a wee taste:

I twittered my impressions as follows (if you want chronological sense, go from the bottom up):

• Good length gig. ie shorter than normal. Keeps it fresh. More gigs should be shorter, sez I.10:24 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• April is weighty as hell. Dark as molasses. #pjharvey10:20 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• Pig will not is better live10:06 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• Passionless pointless takes on for a moment the character of a blur slow stadium number. #pjharvey10:00 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• Masterful transition between two songs. Guitar and drums/keys play 16 bars or so in different time signatures from one another.9:53 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• Leaving california. Effortlessly falling into the high register again. Superbly retains the scooped out ethereality of the record9:46 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• 'chair'. Rock. This is very good. Not often a live mix gives real power to bass and kit yet retains vocal clarity9:42 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
• 
  
• Thinning of texture for 'the soldier' works superbly. Great high register. Fragile.9:29 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• Her voice is superb, live. And - thank god - they've got the mix right.9:17 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  
  
• Pj Harvey live in Oxford. First song = black hearted love.9:03 PM Apr 16th from TwitterForiPhone
  

... So, yes, it was rather good. Though I couldn't help but think: if PJH is this good live when playing only collaborative numbers (the songs were taken from just the two albums released jointly by PJH + Parish, with no PJH solo material), she'd be friggin' excellent doing her own stuff.

I like the PJH/Parish music, but it generally (taken as a whole) lacks the variety and intensity of the solo albums.

Download an mp3 of 'Rope Bridge Crossing' by PJ Harvey and John Parish

Read Heavy Soil's review of A Woman, A Man, Walked By, the new album by PJ Harvey and John Parish