Articles

Portishead's New Depth

Washington Post, May 6, 1995

Before a sluggish crowd at Radio Music Hall Tuesday night, Portishead animated and electrified under an hour's worth of it's tranced-out hip-hop and soul. The group, on a two-week US tour to promote its album "Dummy," arrived with four musicians backing up vocalist Beth Gibbons and song-writer-programmer-deejay Geoff Barrow. On record, its sample- and synth-driven songs can come off as overwrought and torpid. Live, however, the Portishead took on more depth, filled out with winding, grinding wah-wah guitar.

But Portishead's interaction with the audience was as minimal as Radio Music Hall's decor; Gibbons confined herself mostly to swaying around the microphone stand between drags on a cigarette.

The biggest suprise was the show closer, the hit "Sour Times." The band played it much slower than on record, treating it as a sort of moody, romantic dirge - until the last minute, when it cranked up the volume and drove the song into a wall of feedback, climaxing with the guitars and Gibbons screaming at equal volume. Those closing instants contained more energy than all 50 minutes of "Dummy."

Rob Pegorano

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Dummy

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Portishead's New Depth