PJ Harvey
Fresh from being awarded her second Mercury Music Prize, PJ Harvey takes to the stage of the State Theatre as the headline for this year's Sydney Festival.
Overview
PJ Harvey is a musical darling of long-standing reputation, first making a name for herself in the early nineties as a raven-haired siren with a crooked smile and a heart-shaped face. Over the twenty-odd years she's been in business, her music has evolved in ever more stunning and heart-wrenching directions, with her most recent output, 2011's Let England Shake, being the fastest selling and certainly one of the most praised albums of her entire career.
Recorded in a 19th century church on a cliff-top in Dorset, Harvey's home county, Let England Shake earned her the prestigious Mercury Music Prize for the second time since 2001's Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. This made her the only artist to ever receive the award twice, beating out the likes of James Blake and Adele much to the consternation of some very foolish folk.
Now, PJ Harvey returns to Australia for the first time since 2008 as the musical headline for this year's Sydney Festival. Her Sydney Festival performance will feature many of the songs on Let England Shake as well as work from her past albums, all of which are worth a listen. She will be joined on the stage of the magnificent State Theatre with long-time collaborators Mick Harvey, John Parish and Jean-Marc Butty. The performances are likely to be some of the best you will ever see, so we highly recommend getting along to see her if you've got your wits about you.