Portishead's records are the essence of control, every single sound in

its place -- on their self-titled, 1997 album, nearly every sound but

Beth Gibbons' vocals was transferred to vinyl or tape before being

"played" on the track, even guitar and keyboard lines performed in the

studio were moved to a more malleable medium. Which means that, live,

played by a band, many of the songs are triple-simulations --

simulations of a studio product that was put together almost entirely

from simulations of live instruments.

Just before releasing Portishead, the band -- yes, with guitars,

drums, keyboards, turntables, the works -- opened a major world tour at

NYC's Roseland Ballroom, accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. Portishead

gamely attempt to reproduce the slowed-down spy-movie atmospherics from

Portishead's two longplayers, and, happily, if most of the songs don't

exactly profit from the live treatment, at least they're not lost in a

weird semantic haze.

PNYC, the bulk of which documents the Roseland show, suggests

that Portishead don't approach playing live as an intellectual exercise,

a reassembling of their heady assemblage. They attack the songs as

songs, not as challenges to be met.

And it pays off. Portishead have never needed to humanize their sound --

despite their studio tactics, they've always created deeply felt music

-- but there's an earthiness to PNYC that probably comes from the

unpredictability of live playing, performers feeding off each other's

riffs, dynamics building on the fly, because it feels right. That

they never really expand on the palette they created in the studio

actually speaks well -- it took 35 people to get that sound out live,

after all.

Singer Beth Gibbons works her usual magic: She's absolutely mystifying.

Confounding the stereotypical chanteuse role, she manages to convey

neither nothingness nor heartfelt passion, but rather emotion's

aftertaste, that drained feeling you get when you can't bear to feel

anymore. She practically rips through "Cowboys," "Glory Box" and other

Portishead standards, faltering a bit on "All Mine" when her live range

can't quite match what she can do in the studio.

Fans may be a little irked by the re-worked "Sour Times," which is

toughened up on PNYC, but the rest of the record adheres to the

studio piece's blueprints while adding new elements here and there. If

it's not exactly breathtaking, it's the fault of the live album format,

not Portishead. It's nearly impossible to capture the dynamics of a

concert on tape, that communal sense of sharing something that won't

really live past the moment it's played. PNYC preserves the sound

of what must have been an electrifying experience; it's up to the

listener to supply the rest.