Sound and Fury From PJ Harvey

An early religious ecstasy seemed to take hold of the capacity crowd during PJ Harvey’s Wiltern Theatre concert on Saturday, as listeners rocked in their seats and hollered their devotion to singer Polly Jean Harvey like pilgrims at a tent revival.

As much as the music’s guttural, driving grooves and sinuous beats made fans want to be up and moving, the genteel theater setting kept them seat-bound for most of the 90-minute show. Instead, they bobbed and swayed in place, a physical reflection of the barely contained tension in Harvey’s blues- and folk-flecked tales of sexual ecstasy, unbearable loss and elemental fury.

The riveting performance incorporated most of the Englishwoman’s current album, “Is This Desire?”--as well as selections from her previous four recordings--all rendered in precise sonic detail and shaded with the subtlest of dynamics by Harvey and her band. In concert, the new material shed the sterility of the recording, becoming as earthy and immediate as the earlier works, which ranged from such frenzied rockers as “Dress” and “Snake” to such murmuring ballads as “I Think I’m a Mother.”

For all the sophisticated time signatures and carefully controlled crescendos, the songs never lost their primitive power. The room fairly pulsated with the desperation of characters who are paralyzed by forces beyond their control, who appeal to a higher power but expect no salvation, who are consumed by doubt even in the throes of bliss.

Often playing electric guitar and hand percussion, Harvey appeared less overtly theatrical than during 1995’s “To Bring You My Love” tour. Wearing a simple, knee-length skirt and a red tank top rather than kitschy costumes, she employed a more naturalistic vocal delivery that was still highly dramatic. She let her singing drive home the impact of such fervent, mysterious fables as “My Beautiful Leah” and “Angelene,” shaping high notes, low growls and loud wails with exaggerated movements of her mouth.

Indeed, though the instrumental work was thrilling, it was the singing that defined the highlights, which included a stunning falsetto duet with drummer Rob Ellis on the erotic “Electric Light.” Harvey didn’t speak to the audience much, but her pointed delivery on the set-closing “To Bring You My Love” seemed to express her appreciation to an audience that has for several years willingly gone where her muse has taken them.

The rewards were satisfying, too, as the program underscored the multiple facets of her creative personality, drawn from sources as disparate as folk, blues, punk and the avant-garde rock of Captain Beefheart, while bringing them all seamlessly together.