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110

Not with the Band

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Kushner, R. (2021). Not with the Band. In Kushner, R. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020. Scribner, pp. 110-112

111

A month after Jerry died, PJ Harvey played two sold-out shows at the Warfield, and after her second show she played a secret impromptu set at the Hotel Utah, a dive bar South of Market. The show began at one a.m., after her show at the Warfield. I don’t know how I got invited but I went. The Hotel Utah was a tiny room—it fit maybe forty people and about half those there that night were band members and other musicians who took turns onstage, sitting in. PJ Harvey played all night. I think I left at about five a.m., and she was still playing. She did not get tired, and she did not look tired. She looked joyous, like a person in a church, filling her soul with Holy Spirit as she sang. She stopped only to change guitars, and the entire time, she had this otherworldly glow. I was witness to an artist who wanted to play all night because she was born to do it. She had passion, talent, and incredible technical skills. She sang and played guitar for hours and hours, in an intimate setting, after she had performed a fully rehearsed stadium act for thousands, that very same night. This impressed me. The message I took from it was: to be truly good at something is the very highest joy. And by inference, I understood this: to merely witness greatness is a distant cousin, or even not related at all.

—p.111 by Rachel Kushner 3 years, 3 months ago

A month after Jerry died, PJ Harvey played two sold-out shows at the Warfield, and after her second show she played a secret impromptu set at the Hotel Utah, a dive bar South of Market. The show began at one a.m., after her show at the Warfield. I don’t know how I got invited but I went. The Hotel Utah was a tiny room—it fit maybe forty people and about half those there that night were band members and other musicians who took turns onstage, sitting in. PJ Harvey played all night. I think I left at about five a.m., and she was still playing. She did not get tired, and she did not look tired. She looked joyous, like a person in a church, filling her soul with Holy Spirit as she sang. She stopped only to change guitars, and the entire time, she had this otherworldly glow. I was witness to an artist who wanted to play all night because she was born to do it. She had passion, talent, and incredible technical skills. She sang and played guitar for hours and hours, in an intimate setting, after she had performed a fully rehearsed stadium act for thousands, that very same night. This impressed me. The message I took from it was: to be truly good at something is the very highest joy. And by inference, I understood this: to merely witness greatness is a distant cousin, or even not related at all.

—p.111 by Rachel Kushner 3 years, 3 months ago