British rocker PJ Harvey challenges Minnesota fans, then rewards them with a long-awaited return

She delivered several songs from her underrated 2011 album Let England Shake, a reminder that she is a truly British songwriter in the vein of Kate Bush or Ray Davies of the Kinks. One of these songs, “The Color of the Earth,” was actually sung by her bandmates to introduce the second half while she took a brief breather – which seemed unnecessary since she sounded powerfully vocal throughout the night.

Towards the end, Harvey reached back even further to some of her more bombastic, snarling and patriarchal '90s songs like “Down by the Water”, “To Bring You My Love”, “50ft Queenie” and “Man-Size”. She didn't mention that those latter two songs were from 1993's “Rid of Me,” an album she famously recorded in rural Minnesota at Cannon Falls' Pachyderm Studios with noise-rock guru Steve Albini (whom she one dedicated). song two nights earlier in his hometown of Chicago).

It was an exciting final series of songs. None of these older pieces were big radio hits, that's true. Regardless, they sounded bigger and more impactful than many of the other '90s rock songs we've heard in a year full of Gen-X nostalgia concerts. Harvey's two-part show can hardly be described as nostalgic.