The Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern doesn't look much like an art gallery. With the lights down, and empty of installations and sculptures - Anish Kapoor's unimaginably huge fallopian lily Marsyas, for instance - it resembles an unusually civilized arena venue, all exposed girders and black drapes.
Nevertheless, Great Art is nearby. And so those rare artists who are allowed to play in this remarkable hall must have a certain cachet, a cultural seriousness, and a fanbase who know how to respect the environment. The pervert in dotmusic wants Good Charlotte or similar to play the Tate, if only so their oikish followers get to go somewhere nice for a change. The pragmatist, however, warms to this appearance by PJ Harvey, the very epitome of rock'n'roll good taste.
Harvey has been busy of late: cropping up at a few festivals, contributing four lead vocals to the latest installment of Josh Homme's side project The Desert Sessions. The follow-up to 2000's brilliant 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' remains unfinished, however. And Harvey chooses to play only two new songs at this fine gig.
Instead, the show becomes a bracing homage to Harvey's own past. The line-up revisits the trio that made her name in the early '90s: Harvey on vocals and guitar; Rob Ellis on drums; Mick Harvey from the Bad Seeds (replacing original member Steven Vaughan) on bass and occasional keyboards. The t-shirts on sale feature the hair-flinging cover shot from 1993's 'Rid Of Me'. And the set pivots on that album too, with seven songs that range from the classic ('50ft Queenie', 'Man-Size') to the almost-forgotten ('Me-Jane', 'Missed').
It's a back-to-basics night, then, and it plainly suits Harvey. Her shows are always best when she plays more guitar, when she doesn't have to resort to theatrical schtick to cover her nerves. At times, she even seems perilously close to being relaxed, not least on a staccato, whooping new song called 'Who The F*ck Do You Think You Are?' that's evidently enormous fun to play.
That said, Harvey's music is still defined by its intensity. Everything tonight is clipped, unadorned, a touch metallic. Mick Harvey's domineering basslines bring a unity to songs from disparate points in Harvey's career - from 'Oh My Lover', via 'The Dancer', right up to another mean and lovely new song called 'Shame'. Best of all, though, is 'Rid Of Me', played in its original form with Rob Ellis squealing the chorus in an ecstatic (or tormented) falsetto.
Harvey smiles wryly, in that uncomfortably superior way she has, and we all congratulate ourselves on our excellent taste. PJ Harvey at the Tate Modern: now that's class.
