There have only been x solo female Wire cover stars, and over the course of this weekend I’ve managed to see (2/x*100)% of them, which isn’t bad going. PJ Harvey made up the second part of this double bill, taking the solo thing to its logical conclusion by playing with no support and no band, and starting at the leisurely-meal-in-a-restaurant-friendly time of 9pm. While I had been expecting a set based largely around her excellent new album White Chalk, instead we were treated to a selection from across her seven albums proper, and although I haven’t done the maths, the set list felt pretty evenly split across them.

She began with the tortured howl of “To Bring You My Love”, and continued on in a nakedly emotional manner for the next 90 minutes. The contrast between Polly’s urge in interviews to keep details of her personal life tightly locked away stands in marked contrast to her seemingly uncontrollable desire to lay her craft bare before her audience as she did tonight. The songs from White Chalk stood out tonight, including the standout first track “The Devil” and the intense illucidity of “When Under Ether”, with Harvey displaying surprising prowess on the piano as well as her unsettling upper vocal register. A little humour permeated the overwhelming catharsism when the drum machine developed a mind of its own and began spouting ridiculously inappropriate disco rhythms (”Play Love Shack!” came one quick-witted response). Ultimately the track, “Electric Light”, benefitted from the machine’s removal to the naughty corner, and he song’s necessary stripping back to bare skeleton.

The set ended with a devastating last pairing of songs - “The Piano”, with its shrieks of “Oh God I miss you!” and “nobody’s listening!” (untrue, clearly we were spellbound), and the quite acoustics of “Desperate Kingdom Of Love”. It was a very different show to the one I saw last night, and I can’t help but think that if I had been much closer to the stage I may even have enjoyed her tremendous performance even more - the sensation of watching this performance with so many others felt more than a little voyeuristic.

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