by Benji Heywood (@benjiheywood)
Being in Portishead is about control. How else can one explain the lengths the trio comprised of vocalist Beth Gibbons, multi-instrumentalist/producer Geoff Barrow, and guitarist Adrian Utley will go to get a sound? Consider "Western Eyes," the final track on Portishead’s second album Portishead. The track is listed as sampling "Hookers & Gin" by the Sean Atkins Experience, but no such song exists. Like most of the samples on Portishead, it was created by the band themselves by recording it in the studio then pressing the recordings on vinyl. Geoff Barrow would then take the vinyl samples into the woods and distress them with dirt and leaves before returning to the studio and resampling the now-scratchy sounds for their album. That’s dedication to a bit.
It's curious then why in 1997, on the eve of a year-long tour supporting the soon-to-be-released album Portishead, a band this obsessive would choose to record and release a one-off performance to an audience who hadn’t yet heard most of the songs – with very little rehearsal time to boot. Some have suggested that in light of the massive success of Portishead’s 1994 debut Dummy – which sold upwards of 3 million copies – this surprisingly devil-may-care approach reflected Portishead’s deep ambivalence towards fame.
But I propose a simpler explanation: The performance they captured on July 24th, 1997, released the following year as Roseland NYC Live, was magical. If it hadn’t turned out, Portishead would have shelved it. In fact, Roseland Live NYC – which paired a gripping performance by Gibbons and co. with a full band and orchestral strings, horns, and woodwinds – would be the last music Portishead would release for over a decade. Now, 25 years later, the band has reissued the album as Roseland NYC Live 25, newly remastered, and for the first time in its complete form (the original version of Roseland omits a few tracks and replaced performances of “Roads” and “Sour Times” with live versions from other performances later in the tour).
Roseland NYC Live was initially released on CD and VHS but was reissued four years later on DVD. For those who’ve seen it, it’s impossible to listen to the album without picturing Gibbons, eyes closed, clutching the mic as if her life depended on it, smoke from her lit cigarette orbiting her head. Or how the band set up in the round, with Gibbons facing Utley as he swayed above his guitar, Barrows nearby scratching on the decks, flanked on one side by the orchestra and on all others by the audience.
It’s also hard to ignore how unabashedly ‘90s the video looks. Grainy with quick cutaways and tilted camera angles, the audience dressed in goofy shirts and wallet chains, the ubiquity of bleached-tipped hair, the casual Friday dress code of the band. It makes for a nostalgia-laden watch, especially when one remembers that the Roseland Ballroom, which closed in 2008, is now a luxury residential tower, another example of Manhattan’s 21st century transformation from gritty cultural mecca to limp conclusion of neoliberal capitalism.
Listening to Roseland NYC Live, all such nonsense fades away. The music is at turns beautiful, haunted, and thrilling, performed by a band at the apex of its powers. Roseland NYC Live 25 retains every bit of its beguiling charm twenty-five years later. I remember hearing it for the first time in 1998 and wondering how it was possible that Portishead could pull off their sui generis music in a live setting while retaining its otherworldliness. Roseland NYC Live 25 is not only proof of concept, the addition of a live orchestra brings a visceral eeriness to Portishead’s spectral songs.
This is testament to the compositions – where songs like “Cowboys” and “All Mine” bristle with electromagnetic energy – as well as the performers. Despite her self-conscious apologies throughout the set – mercifully removed from the album version – Beth Gibbons has never sounded better. Her voice contains multitudes of anguish, a strange form of love, pulsing with sexual longing and loss. No one sounds like her, and this performance cemented her place as one of the greatest vocalists of our generation.
Is it a little disappointing that the version of “Sour Times” that appears on the original version of Roseland is absent on Live 25? Yea, kinda, but despite Gibbons’ herculean vocal performance and the band’s feedback laden freakout, I always felt the inclusion of a song recorded almost nine months later never felt quite right on the album. Its inclusion broke the spell cast on Roseland that rainy night in November. Live 25 amends that very slight hiccup and the album’s flow is better for it.
Many of the album’s highlights come when the music of the band and the orchestra dovetail into one. The crescendo of “Mysterons” is a great example, as is “Half Day Closing” and the penultimate track, “Strangers.” It’s in these moments that the orchestra is much more than accompanying the band. This works in the opposite way, also. The quiet tension built by the vibrating violins at the beginning of “Over” are literally pitch perfect, or on opener “Humming,” as the orchestral swells match the band’s theremin tide.
The audience plays the part of supporting cast well, despite not knowing over half the songs which were soon to be released on Portishead later that year. The biggest roar of recognition comes near the end of the night when the band performs “Roads” (for some reason, the order on Live 25 differs slightly from the actual performance). While a solitary Rhodes speaks its trembling soliloquy, soon joined by Gibbons and a simple trap beat, the audience hushes, transfixed. When the orchestra and bass guitar enter and Gibbons steps away from the mic, the result is rapturous. The crowd roars in appreciation and we, listening 25 years later, are right there with them.
Portishead’s legacy is still being written. The band followed Roseland Live NYC with Third in 2008. Since then, a couple of one-off songs have appeared including a cover of ABBA’s “SOS.” As we wait for a fourth studio album, Live 25 serves as a reminder that Portishead is one of the most important bands of our time.