New York City, Nov. 4, 1998

The Hammerstein is packed to the rafters. The Polly Jean look-a-like procession is ambling across the floor and an apocalyptical boom is emanating from an all-too-well functioning monster sound system. As I feel the buzz of anticipation waiting for PJ Harvey to materialize on-stage, I realize this is not just a concert, it is a religious gathering. At least that's the way it feels with the flock of disciples that have filled the room from wall to wall and the belly-full of red wine that I've consumed a half-hour or so ago.

Polly Jean Harvey and her namesake band have been so canonized by the press since their 1992 debut, Dry, that delivering anything less then a startling product in 1998 would have undoubtedly caused tremendous disappointment. This level of pressure, I imagine, has had much to do with her three-year hiatus from the music business following the release of To Bring You My Love in 1995. PJ came back swinging in September of this year with Is This Desire, an album which has been touted, by fans and critics alike, as the band's best to date. Forget Girl Power, Polly Jean is the reining goddess of the music industry today.

The lights go down. The roar from the Polly Jean congregation is like few I've heard before. These are not just cheers, they are visceral wails of adoration. As Harvey opens with "Catherine" off the new release, the congregation goes silent, enraptured and captivated, locked in a state of symbiotic hypnosis. The power behind the frail-looking black-haired waif before the crowd is indisputably surreal. The legions of PJ disciples have become too large to qualify as a cult-following, but a cult they are, in no uncertain terms.

The show this year is distinctly minimal. White lights, as stark as PJ's stripped-down industrial music, are the only visible effects during the opening numbers. Polly Jean's voice is a viciously gorgeous thing, effortlessly moving from sotto voce whispers to plaintive gut-splitting wails. Across her shoulder, hangs a black Telecaster on which she's playing some hauntingly lucid leads. The band is tight and forceful. As the set continues, the tempo gets calculatingly faster, whipping the audience into a frenzy. Polly Jean may not have inherited the earth, but she certainly has a lien on the Hammerstein Ballroom tonight.

The set is now in its second half and Harvey is launching into "Meet Ze Monsta." Polly Jean has the energy of the possessed. She is a siren that moves on-stage in an ethereal wave, like a serpent dressed in a blood-red halter top. Deep blue and red lights begin to supplant the pale lights of the earlier numbers. Soon PJ Harvey breaks into "Angeline," the lead track from the new CD, which manages to doom its protagonist before the opening verse is through: "My first name is Angeline, prettiest mess you've ever seen."

Later, when the set wraps up, the band is brought back by a demonic caterwaul from the crowd. Harvey rewards the congregation with three more songs of Euro-gloom including "The Garden," "The Sky Lit Up" and "To Bring You My Love." Following the encore, Polly tells the audience, "Thank you, very much. You're very kind," in a soft, pixie-ish voice before exiting the stage. And as the crush of humanity leaves the Hammerstein, you're left feeling that next year, should PJ Harvey decide to tour again, the congregation will be too large to squeeze into this mid-sized ballroom. Can the same fervor take place under the concrete dome of Madison Square Garden? Hell, it's worked for Billy Graham. And as Billy likes to preach, anything's possible in the age of miracles.