So fully aware this thread is basically just me talking to myself these days, but PJ Harvey's performance last night finally crystallised something I should have realised a long time ago. Forget Depeche Mode, New Order - even Massive Attack, PJ Harvey is where it starts and ends for me, she is the greatest. England's last living rose, if you will.
She played her new album I Inside The Old Year Dying all the way through and then treated us to an absolute rampage through a peerless back catalogue. So many guises, so many tunes. I found myself tears in my eyes in moments, arms aloft hollering along (but not too loudly, cos I came to hear Polly's flawless voice) the next.
And the really great thing was how up for it everyone was and also, for the first time in nearly twenty years, you could see how much she was enjoying herself. This most intense of live performers was almost... playful. An exhilarating couple of hours in North London.
