Hear Me Out: Portishead’s ‘Roseland NYC Live’ is the best live album of all time
The first time I heard Portishead, I was in the passenger seat of my family car. My dad was driving while telling me how ‘Mysterons’, the first track on Dummy, was inspired by the theme of one of his childhood television shows, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. I was subsequently introduced to the trip-hop band’s debut album. I can’t remember where we were going. I was too enamoured by a record that I now, years later, call one of my all-time favourites.
After devouring Dummy for quite some time, I moved on to their self-titled second album, then the aptly titled Third. I loved discovering songs like the sensual ‘Only You’ and the pounding ‘Machine Gun’, soon moving onto B-sides like the alternative take of ‘Glory Box’ called ‘Scorn’. Yet, for some reason, I always neglected their live album, Roseland NYC Live.
Admittedly, it took me a long time to get into live albums. I always wondered what the point was when I could just listen to studio albums, which came without the feeling of jealousy that live albums elicited in me. Hearing the screams and applause of fans who were getting to witness bands that I might never have the chance to see plagued my listening experience, and often, the sound quality wasn’t all that good.
Yet, after hearing The Velvet Underground’s ‘After Hours’ performed by Lou Reed instead of Maureen Tucker on their Max’s Kansas City live album, which – despite being far from sublime in terms of its audio quality – is absolutely brilliant, my interest in live recordings was suddenly piqued.
Good live albums capture the atmosphere of the band’s performances, which are often moments in time we’ll never be able to live through. You can practically hear New York’s early 1970s underground scene, the sweat on the walls, and the presence of the person recording bubbling beneath Reed’s rendition of the song typically performed by their drummer. So, when I finally got around to Roseland NYC Live, I was blown away by what I’d been missing.
The album features the New York Philharmonic Orchestra alongside a string of additional musicians, such as Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory on baritone sax and oboe. Beginning with ‘Humming’, which boasts haunting synths and a thumping beat, the song cuts straight through your speaker and immerses you in Portishead’s otherworldly landscape. It’s cinematic, moody and seductive. Every song is so full of life, and no layer of sound which is found on their sample-heavy records is spared.
When you listen to any Portishead album, it seems as though the songs wouldn’t be the easiest pieces of music to emulate in front of an audience, but with Roseland NYC Live, the band gives a flawless performance. It only proves their prowess and sheer genius as innovative and highly skilled musicians, taking listeners on a journey through glitching trip-hop beats, powerful vocals, record scratches, emotive string sections, and sexy brass notes.
While every song on the album is performed to perfection, ‘Half Day Closing’ (which has always made me think of being beamed up into the night sky), ‘Glory Box’, and ‘Only You’ stand out as some of the most spectacular cuts. Gibbons also particularly shines on the emotional ‘Roads’, with the audience gently clapping along to the beat before Gibbons’ powerful delivery of the last few lines elicits eruptions of applause and cheers, sending goosebumps down your spine.
I can’t forget the closer ‘Strangers’, either. I will always pick this live version over the recorded one due to the thumping instrumentals, which swell with ecstatic frenzy in the final third, where James Bond-esque guitars filter through the soundscape.
The question of the best live album ever recorded is a subjective one – some might say Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, and others might select Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged. While I think these are incredible too, for me, nothing comes close to the immersive world created by Portishead on Roseland NYC Live.
