PJ Harvey review, Glastonbury 2024: Rock artist casts herself as a provocative rockabilly re-inventor of old

Efficiency artist Marina Abramovich, given a short slot on the Pyramid Stage forward of PJ Harvey, claims she needs the whole subject to interact in seven minutes of silence whereas she stands onstage dressed as an enormous peace image as a result of “the world is a very s***** place”.

Bombay Bicycle Membership, seeping over from the Different Stage, clearly didn’t get the memo, however the contemplative break additionally offers Glastonbury pause from Sugababes’ “Spherical Spherical” to recalibrate itself to Harvey’s enthralling modern-ancient aesthetic.

As Emily Eavis bangs a gong to mark the top of the silence, Polly Jean appears to rise from the leyline itself dressed as a haunted crow tree, and in these fittingly mystical environs, the most recent stage in her career-long, Bowie-esque evolution reaches its immersive conclusion.

Over within the Theatre Area, there are wags wandering round dressed as classical work, frames and all, however the opening clutch of songs from Harvey’s newest album I Inside The Outdated Yr Dying current her extra as fifteenth Century artist Jan van Eyck’s depiction of St Vincent; the one-time storage provocateur, glamourpuss and dream pop Woman of the Lake has been solid this previous decade as a medieval experimentalist.

“Prayer on the Gate” and “The Nether-Edge” – swirled by spirit voices and performed on what feels like wishing sticks and summoning pipes – are funereal, digital pagan items that might have soundtracked the ultimate scene of Kill Checklist. As “dark-haired lords” abound, shepherd women weave and Harvey conjures lyrics of loss of life and romance in Anglo-Saxon dialect, Lankum positively have her to thank. Though heaven is aware of what the Dua Lipa space-keepers down the entrance make of all of it.

The textures listed below are so dank and enveloping that when the looking horns of “The Wonderful Land”, from 2011’s celebrated Let England Shake, blare out and Harvey sings, “What’s the superb fruit of our land? Its fruit is deformed youngsters”, it’s greeted as a digital get together banger by the (noticeably skinny) crowd.

Likewise the rattling clap-along of “The Phrases That Maketh Homicide”, though a more energizing tempo arrives as Harvey whips off the tree costume and dives into “50ft Queenie”, crawling throughout the stage and caressing herself just like the visceral and provocative rockabilly re-inventor of previous.

There’s a shame-free aid in the truth that Harvey hasn’t discarded traditional materials akin to “Man-Measurement” as she’s progressed; certainly, when she hammers into the staccato chords of her 1991 debut single “Costume” a through-line emerges… the roots of her present sepulchral graininess had been embedded right here.

She closes with a very Patti Smith tackle “To Carry You My Love”, a brooding overture to an evening of leotarded poptimism that reveals what number of different sonic worlds are doable. If you happen to keep silent one other minute or two, you would possibly simply hear the previous gods rocking out.