Beth Gibbons played the Orpheum – 4/4
Portishead singer Beth Gibbons brought her first-ever U.S. solo tour to Boston’s Orpheum with support from Cass McCombs.
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After well over a decade of prolific showgoing, the list of favorite artists I conceivably could see live but haven’t is pretty short. Very near to the top of that list would be the English trip-hop trio Portishead, whose discography is a bulletproof three-album all-timer. The band last toured the U.S. in the fall of 2011, at which point I was slightly too preoccupied with being a college freshman to make any midweek ventures to the nearest dates at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom. We all have regrets. But while that particular gig remains un-crossed-off the list, this month’s local appearance by voice of the group Beth Gibbons went some way towards filling the void.
The band has remained on a sort-of hiatus for a number of years (they last reunited at Bristol’s 02 Academy for a half-hour appearance at a benefit gig in 2022), and while Gibbons has surfaced to sing symphonic works in Polish and earn a Grammy nomination for her feature on Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in the interim (whilst multi-instrumentalist Geoff Barrow formed [and recently departed] the experimental rock trio Beak alongside his film scoring work and guitarist Adrian Utley guested with or produced for the likes of Perfume Genius, Torres and Squirrel Flower), there’d notably been a 16-year gap stretching back to 2008’s Third since we last heard an album’s worth of originals from her. Portishead wouldn’t be Portishead minus any of the three, but Gibbons’ haunting voice is undoubtedly their most distinctive calling card, and the release of Lives Outgrown last year – with a North American tour to follow – was cause for widespread excitement from many a fan lamenting that lengthy drought.
Lives is a different beast from Gibbons’ main project, trading in eerie synths and sample flips for earthier tones and chamber instrumentation, and last Friday’s show at the Orpheum leaned fully into that lush orchestration at the hands of a seven-piece backing band. With Gibbons anchored at center stage and a dazzling light show keeping things visually kinetic, the ensemble tackled all 10 new songs in all their simultaneously understated and stirring glory. Gibbons’ vocals, undiminished in their aching power, were unsurprisingly the star of the show throughout a brisk but potent main set, which also included a pair of cut’s from her 2002 collaboration with Rustin Man (aka former Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb).
The evening’s focus, in both mood and content, was firmly on present rather than past, but the electricity in the room was certainly palpable when Gibbons did dip back to the Portishead days for an encore rendition of Dummy‘s “Roads,” deftly executed by the band. Fair game to choose a single song, and a pretty ideal choice at that. Followed by the nightcap of Lives’ “Reaching Out,” it served as an emotional peak to an engrossing and long-awaited show.
Check out photos from the night below, including an opening set from the always-entrancing and lightly enigmatic Cass McCombs.
