Portishead - Civic Centre, Wolverhampton - 13/4/08
4/5
By: Liam Manley
The last time I saw Portishead, I was fifteen and knee deep in a mire of mud coated hippies, one dog on a string short of full-on crustiness.
That Friday night at Glastonbury '98 wasn't exactly a high point in my life - unless your preferred past-time is smoking resin that's more likely derived from car tyre than cannabis and relaxing in a field that has the appearance of a World War One trench, praying that the dry tickle of blood in your throat doesn't turn out to be TB.
10 years on, tonight's crowd of GAP parents could well be that same audience who, over the last decade, have put down the juggling balls, unravelled their dreads, whacked on some chinos and took up breeding. And this would be the case, were it not for the chap on my left in the wizard's trousers reminding me that some people never do change.
Portishead, however, have certainly changed and mostly for the better. Prior to stage time, the biggest indication of what's to follow comes via the PA, with the gripping first side of Unknown Pleasures preceding Visage's unfairly maligned Fade To Grey; so far, so sombre, but then it was highly unlikely that they would follow the lead of, say, Goldfrapp, who swapped the ethereal soft furnishings of Felt Mountain for the irony-clad electro-glam of Black Cherry. Thankfully, on the evidence of tonight, the changes made are much more gradual and organic.
Set openers 'Silence' and 'Hunter' appear to have eschewed the Ennio Morricone and John Barry atmospherics of old, in favour of the much colder expanses of John Carpenter's work; in particular, with its sparse proto synth-funk, the Assault On Precinct 13 soundtrack. Elsewhere, what begins as pastoral folk soon spills over into phased-synth propelled Motorik on 'The Rip', while the stark electronic snare led 'Machine Gun' offers the set's most abrasive point, if not its most exciting.
Though new additions have been added to their palette, the Rhodes pianos, smartly paced Blaxploitation beats and Gerry Anderson Theremin of old have been retained, along with Adrian Utley's Badalamenti-like tremolo guitar, though it takes on a slightly metallic edge at times, particularly on main set-closer Cowboys. Of the older material, 'Glory Box's cinematic grandeur is left un-tarnished, whereas, when compared to the explosive version found on Roseland NYC Live, the straight reading of 'Sour Times' feels slight and ineffective. One remaining element, however, now feels somewhat passé, as Barrow's once virtuosic scratching jars, if only, in his absence, due to turntablism in a live group context becoming a casualty of misuse by lesser talents.
The most welcome constancy is found in the beguiling presence of Beth Gibbons, who, when not recoiling to Barrow's area beneath the monochrome visuals that are projected throughout, takes up her position stage-front, her deportment precisely encapsulating the sense of claustrophobia and intimacy Portishead's soundtrack veers between. It's clear that she's never been some bauble or fashionable accoutrement employed to detract attention away from faceless collaborators (unlike Morcheeba or Zero 7, who were more akin to a post-modern M People), rather more an incredible, singular talent capable of arresting vocal performances, as she frequently proves tonight, before once more receding from the spotlight.
Taking the above into account, the evening's defining moment comes when the stage is cleared, but for three chairs, as a seated Utley, Barrow and Gibbons begin a Slint-esque bass-thrum-led versioning of 'Wandering Star', with its beat-free backing allowing Gibbons' vocals more room to curl and soar, before reaching a plaintive falsetto, leaving the seemingly dated original a distant memory. And it's with this that they cast off the straightjacket of trip-hop that had labelled them as little more than muzak, twisting away from the misconceptions that had led to their self-imposed exile. Though it may seem glaringly obvious and more than a little glib to point out the significance of tonight's final encore being titled 'We Carry On', it serves as a sharp reminder that Portishead could just have easily not bothered returning. But they did - and the world's a better place for it.
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