Only PJ HARVEY makes a brave attempt to extend the idiom. In a short but mesmerising set Polly almost pulls itt off, makes us think as well as react. Live, her songs assume a rugged muscularity - dense, powerful rhythms and a thundering bass that all but swamps her own guitar - and yet retain the emotionally brittle, intensly personal edge of "Dry."

Her voice is an urgent shiver, riding roughshod above it all, and even the Dylan cover (ther first half or so of "Highway 61") is transformed into something else, something glittering, hard and new. For the first (and the last) time today, we're left hungry for more, sated but still wanting. A definiite highlight.

What needs to be said of the travesty that was PUBLIC IMAGE LTD...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwhartwig/4188495779/sizes/l/

Not having ever seen this one up close, I never realized that was a dog (an old black lab it looks like) in the picture.