I hate to play the woulda coulda shoulda game, but I can't help thinking I would have enjoyed this show even more if I had taken the opportunity to see PJ Harvey at least once during the 90s, back when she was really on fire.  I was a huge fan of her first 3 albums and she must have played San Diego a few times.  Either I didn't know about the shows or knew and just decided to pass for some reason.  I really can't remember.  Some of her music in this decade has still been very good (most notably her Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea album) but there has been an unmistakable creative shift to her work.  It seems like so many artists - just when you think you really understand their music to the nth degree - that's when the pull a 180 and leave you in the dust.  Selfishly I wish none of them would ever adopt this "if it ain't broke, fix it anyway" credo, but what can you do.  As a loyal fan you just keep buying what they put out and hoping you'll wind up liking it as much as the stuff you fell in love with in the first place.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  With Polly Jean, it's been a little of both.

And so I may have missed the Dry tour, the Rid Of Me tour (that one hurts the most) and the Stories tour.  But at long last, 16 years after becoming a fan, I have finally seen the woman perform live.  She was touring to promote her latest project with sometime collaborator John Parish (a man I admit to knowing nothing about) and this turned out to be the last night of the tour.  PJ wrote and recorded a quirky album with Parish about 10 years ago, right around the time her solo work started to become less and less recognizable.  It'd been so long I assumed the project was a one-off, but they recently reunited to make another challenging record, with the deceptively simple title of A Man A Woman Walked By.  Preparing for this show I expected and hoped that she would mix some old songs in with the new, a common approach that will usually please most any ticket-holding fan.  A girl I chatted to before the show expressed exactly the same desire, as I'm sure did most of the Humphrey's crowd.  Moments after PJ and the boys walked onstage those hopes were quickly dashed, as she informed the crowd they would only be performing Harvey/Parish songs.  I sensed the crowd letting out a collective "boo hoo".

All that being said, the show was excellent.  The music being foreign to me turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I was forced into the moment, and experienced the show a lot more objectively than I otherwise would have done.  The wispy figure standing on the stage was very familiar, as was the voice, but that was all.  Even though I had bought the new record a week or two earlier every song in the set felt new to me.  One song, "Leaving California", was faintly familiar from having listened to it twice while driving.  Coincidentally that was the song wherein PJ was at her vocal best.  The whole night I remember being surprised at how well she sang.  I've always loved her voice, without necessarily stopping to think that it might be any good.  Turns out it is very good indeed - aggressive one moment, feminine and haunting the next.  She also has a lot more vocal range than I had realized.

The band was also superb.  With several different nationalities represented it seemed like PJ had gone to great lenghts to hand-pick the players she wanted for the tour from the cream of the crop of European musicians.  Whether or not it happened that way I have no idea.  But these guys sure could play.  They were also impeccably dressed, each of them wearing a tailored suit and fedora hat.  I might have thought for a moment in the weeks leading up to the show that Humphrey's was a poor fit for this act, but the look of the band and the nature of the music being as they were it ended up a great fit.  In addition to the spendy wardrobe they pulled out a few other stops, including a snazzy but tasteful light show and a glorious sound mix.

Ultimately the night was all about PJ.  I've always thought she was a remarkable woman and she seems to only get better with age.  So gifted, strong and confident yet warm, playful and sexy all at the same time.  She was so gracious with the crowd, chatting and smiling and seeming to enjoy every moment of the show to the fullest.  And the crowd - no doubt as unfamiliar with the music as I was - seemed to respond strongest to her on that personal level, moreso than to the music alone.  I was struck by the sincerity of that.  So many of us go to shows with our "play the hits" mentality, applauding strongest to the numbers that sold the most.  There was none of that on this night.  Everything was fresh and new and when it worked, we felt it.  Onstage was a great band led by this woman we all felt we knew a little bit, playing music that we didn't.  We may not have known it, but she bloody well did.  They all knew this music and clearly had a passion for it.  From the way they cared for and presented the songs, they gave the receptive crowd just the invitation we needed to feel some of that passion along with them.