PJ Harvey and John Parish at Minnesota Zoo
Maybe a few PJ Harvey fans in Saturday night's crowd at the Minnesota Zoo felt a little apprehensive to hear that Harvey and her friend John Parish would mostly play songs from their two collaborative albums, 1996's Dance Hall At Louse Point and this year's A Woman A Man Walked By. Hell, Decider had its doubts, too—no "Victory," no "To Bring You My Love"? But by the time Harvey's voice swung up into the euphoric chorus of Dance Hall's "Rope Bridge Crossing" (the third song in their set), it seemed only right to let these tunes shine, and they're better live. Part of it was the zoo's surprisingly intimate amphitheater—the vine-draped rock wall behind the stage, or the cranes swooping over the lake in the background—but it was mostly the powerful chemistry between Harvey's still-dramatic vocal range and Parish's arrangements.
Harvey came out barefoot and in a summery black dress (perhaps the playful twin of the stuffily white-dress-clad Harvey on the cover of 2007's White Chalk?), and throughout the set she flitted around with a surprising lightness. Even as she pleaded eagerly and creepily—"Can I tell you a story?"—during the spoken verses of "Taut," it seemed like a festive, if intense piece of theater, and not the kind of labored goth-queen schtick that Harvey could probably get away with at this point. It only got more fun—for Harvey and the audience—as she cackled about a man with "chicken liver balls," then growled "I want his fuckin' ass!" during "A Woman A Man Walked By / The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go," which increasingly came off as a nursery rhyme gone ferociously wrong. As Parish and band carried that song into an extended instrumental break, Harvey skipped off the ground-level stage to hop around with a few dancers who'd gathered up front. She even told the crowd that she enjoyed being able to see everyone's face in the amphitheater, though she may not have noticed that a small bat flew over the band a few times during the show.
That said, the rapt crowd's favorite tune was probably "Leaving California." Parish strummed a dobro as Harvey fluttered through the higher reaches of her voice, sounding eerie and graceful and spinning through the night like the notes of a sped-up music box. And like most of the evening's numbers, it simply stomped the recorded version of the song. Parish and guitarist Giovanni Ferrario wielded matching Jazzmasters on more rocking numbers like "Black Hearted Love," and Jean-Marc Butty's drumming proved essential throughout the set, bringing a suspenseful undertow to the somber waltz of "April" during the encore. As Parish switched between guitars, banjo, and a ukulele, the very handy Eric Drew Feldman filled on some bass here, some textural keyboards there. Not to denigrate the Harvey/Parish albums—these two alone bring out Harvey's freakish versatility just as much as spinning Dry, White Chalk, and Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea back to back—but the urgency this five-piece setup brought to the songs made for many more captivating surprises.
Decider must also note opener Pop Parker, who came out gently plucking a nylon-stringed guitar and very Britishly crooning "mother... mother... mother... FUCK!" What followed would have seemed like a sick prank if not for Parker's graceful guitar and angelic falsetto. He sang tunes as poetically foul and punchy as the finest limericks, with lyrics about fighting wives and women who "kiss like Charlton Heston," and pleaded: "Sweetheart from work... what the fuck is going on?" It was a bit like an acoustic version of Sparks. Harvey could be seen down front watching Parker's set, and it seems she carried some of the same twisted lightheartedness into her own performance.
