Sometimes, to know that you feel anything, a little pain is better than nothing at all.

When you're seen as a progeny, a legend, it's difficult sometimes to stand out. When surrounded by imitators, the imitated becomes an imitator : how can you tell PJ Harvey from your Peaches, your Brody Dalles, your legions of tortured, troubled, assertive leftfield woman singers? You can't. Sometimes the copier becomes the copied.

There's no difference between this and any other gig : if it's Wednesday it must be London. A persona of a  woman fronts a band of  Skinny White Boys. A woman, who, with utter professionalism bordering on the ignorant, doesn't say a word to anyone, bar "Goodnight", and performs the same way for each song. Cabaret, of a sort.

At Somerset House, on cobblestones, under the shadow of the Union Jack, she executes songs like a killer. Each one is packaged and dismissed efficiently to a crowd that is, at best, subdued. One might even say, scared.

It's all so middle class here. Everyone is so polite and repressed. We do not dance, for it is cobblestones. And we wouldn't want to be... well, different from anyone else now, would we? Musn't grumble. Don't cause a fuss.

At Brixton, the audience is far more lively, but the temperature, the heat, is a fist that assualts you. And I am lost in this crowd, and all I want is to see you again. All I need is what I can't have. How British.

PJ Harvey is so very British. Your typical Class A split personality. Polite and reserved and yet unrepressed and dirty. The air she gives of is that of a sexual predator. Not that of a woman equal, but of a woman who is beyond equal.

The slaves begins by demanding justice, and ends by wanting to wear a crown.

Let us not forget her band. Or the songs. The slightly underachieving, musically not quite inventive, guitar rock that she mines often fails to match the vision she has. As if, like much of Morrissey's work, she is being undersold by her musical partners. But lyrically, melodically she gets her teeth into the meat of your skull and doesn't let go.

The problem is not the musicians. Some sort of hybrid cross of The Clash and Placebo (the good bits) : lanky Punk-reggae guy on bass, anonymous guitar-drums-play anything vunderkid stage right, and rigid, precise drumming from long time collaborator, Richard Ellis.

The band are supremely capable, it is the material itself that is sometimes lacking. Like a jet permanently cruising on a runway, just as if it looks it might go somewher eexciting, her musical backing never quite does. That said, on the odd occasions that her material breaks beyond the standard framework, it is fabulous. "Hustlers Whore", the well known standard, stands out by a mile. The rest of the set is supremely forgettable, albeit a high standard of difficult. I can't remember where choruses and verses go : every song seems to blend into a mass of noise about something. I don't know what exactly, but definitely about Something. And something important.

Yes, PJ Harvey is unique, and the world needs people like her. Not necessarily my fix though. This isn't the music that I need. I don't crave this. Some music I get the shakes if I haven't heard it for a while : some music I crave. Give me another hit. A fix. Just one fix. I need it.

This is not that type of music. Not for me, or it seems from the muted response at Somerset House, or many people. But for some people, it is needed. This is not music : it is a cleansing, a rite and a purge. You are forgiven. The sins are washed clean. Say five "Hail Harvey"'s and you will be absolved.

Sometimes I think too much. Sometimes too little. But I'd rather a world full of people like PJ, who mean it, who have something to say, and say it, than the bland mediocrity of Dido, who is, as she repulsively said "I am my own demographic".

PJ, remain a thorn in the side. It hurts, it stings.. I would rather hurt than be numb. A little pain is all you need. Sometimes, to know that you feel anything, a little pain is better than nothing at all.

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