speed of dark

The basket sculpture at night

For us, the whole point and the peak experience of Coachella 2008's Saturday line-up was the performance of the Brit trip-hop trio Portishead, who are coming off a hiatus of several years for both live performances and new recorded material. Their third album, Third which was officially released mere days after the show, is on my shortlist for Best of 2008.

This was a powerhouse of a show, with no weaknesses that I could detect. I especially enjoyed when the gigantic screen showed a huge shot of Beth Gibbons looming above her tiny, real self. This show gave me my best and most favorite photos of the day.


Click to enlarge

Portishead, accompanied by a guitarist, a drummer, and an electronics guy, kicked off with the now-familiar Portuguese poem at the beginning of Third and its first track, "Silence." The set was a crowd-pleasing mixture mostly from Third and from Dummy, including my two favorites "Mysterons" and "Wandering Star" and Indie Mom's favorite "Glory Box." There was also the exquisite "Roads," its lyrics ("We've got a war to fight...How can it feel this wrong?") made all the more poignant and fitting in the light of current events.

Tracks from Third were very strong and exciting, especially "Threads," which was 10 times more powerful in concert than the album version. "The Rip" was stunningly beautiful.

1. Silence
2. Mysterons (live at Coachella 08)
3. The Rip
4. Glory Box
5. Wandering Star
6. Machine Gun
7. Over
8. Sour Times
9. Cowboys (the only song from 1997's Portishead)
10. Threads (live at Coachella 08)
11. Roads
12. We Carry On
Download a live recording (rar format) of the entire show at Mystic Chords of Memory, the source of "Threads" above.

Click most photos to see gorgeous huge versions in a new window (new tab for Firefox users)


This is another of my favorite photos from the show.



For "Wandering Star," Beth slumped into a plastic lawn chair (left) as if the raw emotions of the song exhausted her, and Adrian Utley applied pliers to his guitar (right). Click to enlarge.



Geoff Barrow and Beth.



Adrian Utley and drummer. Utley is definitely my hero!

More of my favorite photos from the show. Be sure to enlarge the stage shots--they are just spectacular and will give you a sense of what it was like to be there. I especially like the bottom right photo, even though it is blurry, for its explosive colors.






Find more of our posts on Coachella 2008 and a review of Portishead's Third.

Portishead MySpace | Website | Label: Island Records
Buy at Portishead Shop, Amazon, iTunes, and retail stores.