BobSimms wrote:
For the life of me I can’t understand why people are so enamored with the 1995 Glastonbury set. Don’t get me wrong, I hope it does eventually get released online in full for the sake of those who want it, but I’ve never seen anyone explain what made a relatively short festival spot so much more desirable than any other show from that tour.
I personally would pay money for a full, high quality, pro-shot video of one of the PJH trio sets from 1992-93, or even 2003, where Polly’s brilliance as an actual player was on display. But that’s just me.
Interesting. For me the TBYML tour is exceptional and the Glastonbury 1995 performance is the best showcase we have archived, so I would start there as I don’t know what other pro-shot sources could be found elsewhere. I love seeing Polly play guitar too but I am find the meta performativity of the TBYML tour to be utterly thrilling - the intentional artifice and exaggerated/grotesque performance of ‘femininity’ juxtaposed with the gritty textures and almost industrial throb set my world on fire! In my opinion there is no such thing as a less than brilliant PJ Harvey show and I want them ALL but Glastonbury ‘95 is genuinely one of the performances that changed my life when I encountered it. Polly is such a groundbreaking chameleon that we all probably have eras of her career that speak to us louder than others.