Portishead

A concert at a racetrack might sound surreal. Even more so when the band called to perform is one of the most understated and refined acts to emerge on the pop-rock scene in the last twenty years. Yet all reservations about the Roman location soon dissolve: the muggy heat lets a bit of breeze filter through, and dusk sharpens the outline of the surrounding hills, with illuminated planes gliding by just overhead on their approach to Ciampino. Anticipation builds and the crowd around the stage swells: a crowd that, for once, seems remarkably composed and knowledgeable, confirming that the Portishead name is not just a musical brand but something more: a philosophy, a style, or at the very least an attitude. A phenomenon spanning at least two or three generations, so multifaceted and complex is it.

Shortly after 10pm, in (almost) perfect time, our heroes appear: Beth Gibbons, black t-shirt and jeans, ever the same, uniquely disguising her shyness behind that hair dangling over her face and those hands perpetually clasped around the microphone. Behind her, machine-man Geoff Barrow, glacial and silent, pulling the strings. Then trusty Adrian Utley on guitar and the solid rhythm section that completes the line-up, a sextet, with the "fourth man" Dave McDonald, sound engineer, now very much part of the whole.

The opening trio faithfully reproduces the tracklist of their latest, memorable "Third", the album with the giant P on its cover, released in 2008 to renew (and update) the Bristol ritual ten years on. The Portuguese intro to "Silence" is the passkey that unlocks this mysterious and varied music box. Because by now it's reductive to describe Portishead with the term "trip-hop". Theirs is total music for the new millennium. Like the sound that rises dizzyingly on the snare of "Silence", slashed by whip-crack guitars, with Beth's vocal interjections softening, if only for a moment, that wonderfully sinister aura that runs as a red thread through the whole of "Third". Music and images merge live, with filtered, distorted video sequences, often shifting into black and white. Nothing is left to chance, in a rigorous audiovisual balance.

Darkness and tenderness are the two sides of the coin: "Hunter" reminds us of this, with that bewitched whisper that lulls and enchants us, were it not for those unsettling interludes that sow suspense by the handful. Now Gibbons truly takes command, never releasing her clasped hands from that microphone, and "Nylon Smile" really does sound like a prayer: subdued, intimate, yet intensely powerful. The ideal prelude to the spine-tingling double bill that follows: because those unforgettable scratches and sinister echoes tell us it's time to plunge back into the fog of 1990s Bristol, into that glorious trip-hop epic of which "Dummy" was the cornerstone. "Mysterons" is a dazzling flashback, and you find yourself singing that desperate question, "did you really want?", as if time had never passed. Because even back then, that sound was incredibly ahead of its time, in a hyperuranion where the music of the past constantly recycles and renews itself, escaping old age. So when "The Rip" kicks in, a masterpiece of "Third" and of the entire 2000s, you realise that thin red line has never been broken, not even during those ten years of desperate waiting. They're still the same, incredibly alive and original, today as back then, alchemists of a sonic formula that perhaps no one will ever manage to decode. Beth is now a siren, entwined with the insinuating guitar lines that prepare you for that terrifying climax, an insane instrumental crescendo that explodes over retro-futuristic keyboards, while we lose ourselves thinking of those "wild white horses" that will carry her away who knows where, into the mists of some remote corner of Albion.

It's hard, this time, to hold back the emotion, especially since that treacherous enchantress, almost with nonchalance, delivers another low blow: "Sour Times", the key to everything, the track that in 1994 revealed the Portishead galaxy to the world. "Nobody loves me, it's true, not like you do" is almost a generational cry, the invocation of the last romantics of the century, those who, while grunge's big guitars and flannel shirts raged on, clung instead to those imaginary spy-movie soundtracks, to that icy retro elegance, tremendously nostalgic in its pursuit of an impossible past with the machines of the future.

Then, as a cooldown, an impeccable but perhaps slightly cold "Magic Doors", unlike the superlative "Wandering Star" that follows: Beth Gibbons is curled up on stage, confessing in intimacy, with a understated arrangement that, paradoxically, sharpens the pathos. Now she alone is the protagonist, her spectral, aching voice dispensing shivers. The crowd is in raptures and applauds with a warmth it had barely held back until that moment, almost fearing to intrude on that pained intimacy.

But there's no time to rest, because the electric jolt of "Machine Gun" arrives to renew the apotheosis of "Third", while on the screens sequences of Italian memory scroll by – some fresh, like Buffon's saved penalty against "their" England, others fortunately repressed, like frames of a Berlusconi as leader of another era. Bursts and sprays of noise pelt down on a defenseless Beth, in a searing, wrenching contrast, until a fiery red rising sun appears behind her, almost sealing a rebirth, over the solemn notes of the synth. It's one of the highest, most moving moments of the evening. Something that even brings to mind a hint of Floydian grandeur.

But there's still time to return to the unjustly overlooked "Portishead", the confirmation album of 1997, to dust off an "Over" that keeps all its subterranean tension fully intact. Tension that finally dissolves in the choral jubilation of "Glory Box", the other downtempo marvel from "Dummy": "Give me a reason to love you, give me a reason to be a woman", everyone singing along, women and men alike, as if that litany of pain were a universal slogan to share together. The videos reveal every expression of a Gibbons in top form at forty-seven, now the perfect front-woman, able to tame an adoring crowd with a shy mastery that would probably have terrified her just a few years ago. Peerless, even when she isn't singing and turns toward her musicians, her back to the audience.

The kraut-rock of "Chase The Tear", the track released in 2009 in support of Amnesty International, throws a pleasant curveball. That metallic, almost distorted voice again works its spell, weaving through the scratches and noises of the caustic "Cowboys". And the rage that erupts in "Threads", the final act, half blues melancholy and half metal fury, is genuinely frightening.

The lights go down, quick goodbyes. But without too much pantomime or chants of invocation, there they are again, unspooling a tender "Roads", a lullaby wrapped in the electric blue of the lights, while in the background Beth's face dissolves and transforms through shifting movements and fades. This isn't trip-hop, it's timeless music, the kind that lets you touch the sky with a finger. And the closing is heavenly too, this time truly final: Gibbons' understated vocal accompanies the first part of the propulsive "We Carry On", before fading away, overtaken by the surging instrumental crescendo, sent off in glory by walls of noise-rock guitars worthy of Sonic Youth.

And that's when the unimaginable happens: Beth comes down from the stage and runs to greet and hug the crowd. An unheard-of gesture, breaking through the veil of reserve and restraint that had built up until that point, and it sends the audience into a frenzy. Everyone rushes to touch the legend for a moment, a space opens up, while on stage images of those grateful, genuinely astonished embraces play on.

It ends here, in full euphoria, but with a touch of disappointment. Maybe another fifteen minutes? Maybe another track or two from "Portishead" ("Humming"? "All Mine"?). But the ritual has been completed, and the spell, once again, has worked.

There's a big P stamped on the heart, in the sweltering heat of this Roman night. Let's hope we can keep it for a long time.

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