{"id":1243,"date":"2025-05-10T23:06:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T23:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/05\/10\/beth-gibbons-plays-the-masonic-temple-on-lives-outgrown-tour\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T23:06:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T23:06:55","slug":"beth-gibbons-plays-the-masonic-temple-on-lives-outgrown-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/05\/10\/beth-gibbons-plays-the-masonic-temple-on-lives-outgrown-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Beth Gibbons plays the Masonic Temple on \u2018Lives Outgrown\u2019 Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In a long-shadowed, sun-soaked Detroit, The Masonic Temple looked as sacred as its name suggests. All down the block, great mauve banners declared the venue\u2019s centenarian status. In the waning light, the building was a kind of old master \u2014 a fitting place to see the legendary Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons.<\/p>\n<p>Playing the techno-chanteuse of the 2000s, Gibbons brings a sensual melodrama to the beats she rides over. As a member of the three-piece electronic act Portishead, big-band orchestras are reduced to digital ephemera, sample-flipped under her keening voice. In her solo work, though, the trip-hopper has made a full turn to acoustic, entering the singer-songwriter world in 2002 with vivid lyrics and a trembling theremin. By the time of last year\u2019s album, <em>Lives Outgrown<\/em>, her early-career melancholy had calcified into hard-earned wisdom. Gibbons\u2019 lyrics have always been broad and darkly polemic, but after 20 years of love and loss, they ring like the truth.\u00a0\u201cThe time\u2019s never right when you\u2019re losing a soul,\u201d she intoned mournfully on \u201cBurden of Life\u201d; one imagines Gibbons looking off to something the listener can\u2019t see, something long gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At The Masonic Temple, the crowd seemed eager to reclaim something long gone, too. The <em>Lives Outgrown<\/em> tour marks Gibbons\u2019 first in 10 years \u2014 and a reunion for yesteryear\u2019s cool kids. The crowd on this block of the Cass Avenue<strong> <\/strong>were a mix of casual and committed, repping merchandise that ran the gamut from Portishead T-shirts to vinyl copies of Henryk G\u00f3recki\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs).\u201d Gibbons\u2019 show was a sit-down affair; general admission was crowded with black folding chairs. Tonight, the Temple would not have a pit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Taking the place of opening act was Cass McCombs\u2019 sweet, plucking guitar. The show\u2019s intermission was heralded by a long, low therevox, humming like a human voice. As the show began, smoke clouded the cavernous Temple, and the dyed heads of milling concertgoers began to fade.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Rounds of applause heralded Gibbons and her band as they took the stage \u2014 but the band remained stoic. Breaking the silence, touring bandmate Eoin Rooney launched into a deft arpeggio on his guitar, low and arid. For the rest of the show, the band behind Gibbons remained carefully composed and multi-instrumental \u2014 each member would switch between tools, picking up snare drums, sequencers, cellos and clarinets. Lit from behind, the silhouettes of the band\u2019s bodies and instruments projected onto the milling fog, creating a collage of shadows.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/beth-gibbons-lives-outgrown\/\">asked<\/a> what made her retake the stage, Gibbons simply answered, \u201cPeople started dying.\u201d <em>Lives Outgrown<\/em> represents a tuneful form of remembrance \u2014 and today, at the Masonic Temple, that collective remembrance began with the opening track of <em>Lives Outgrown<\/em>, \u201cTell Me Who You Are Today.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Even this far into her career, eclectic song-scaping does not escape Gibbons\u2019 compositions. Even on her acoustic cuts, there is still an echo of the trippy, glitchy and pseudo-mechanical. Gibbons\u2019 voice, fraught by the years, suffused in near-whispers over the watery depth of the song. She lulls, \u201cTell me what you are to me,\u201d as Rooney takes a cello\u2019s bow to an electric guitar. These machine-made sounds keep keyboardist <a href=\"https:\/\/bethgibbons.net\/lives-outgrown-tour\/\">Jason Hazeley<\/a> busy; to produce them, he tinkers with an assemblage of odds-and-ends instruments.<\/p>\n<p>Gibbons may have outgrown her old life, but she still seems fond of her old music. This Masonic Temple show also featured songs off her previous album, 2002\u2019s <em>Out of Season.<\/em> Dotted with references to wise trees, moon tides and melodies of life, Gibbons\u2019 lyrics can feel a little new age on the album cut \u2014 but on \u201cMysteries,\u201d a memorable track from that early-aughts blue period, the lyrics land soft and desperate. \u201cI\u2019ll be there anytime,\u201d she repeats gently, closing out the song with a haunting glissando. As the ghostly, operatic wail filled the room, I could not be sure if it was a human voice or the sound of some stately, delicate machine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the song\u2019s comedown, rapt applause engulfed the band. A woman screamed, \u201cI love you, Beth!\u201d \u2014 but Gibbons didn\u2019t look back. Throughout the set, she had a habit of turning away from the crowd, paying attention to Hazeley\u2019s keyboard chops instead. In these moments, watching her watching the band, you feel the futility of the audience. Touring, too, is a life she\u2019s outgrown.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Closing out<em> <\/em>with a breathtaking rendition of the brassy \u201cTom the Model,\u201d the band stepped offstage. In that moment, the show\u2019s potential seemed infinite. It might be over \u2014 or Gibbons might launch into a second half. In the silence, a woman shrieked, \u201cPlay <em>Dummy,<\/em>\u201d and the band conceded. Soon, Hazeley struck a few sparse, wobbling chords on the keyboard, and they lingered in the air like sunspots\u2014 a cue. When fans finally recognized the beloved Portishead track \u201cRoads,\u201d the sound of their clapping rattled the air.<\/p>\n<p>On \u201cRoads,\u201d Beth clung to the mic like a wet leaf; behind her, the drumwork is as crisp as ever. Whether torch singer or soft crooner, Gibbons\u2019 discography revisits a style that precedes her by some 50 years \u2014 but something essential is transfigured over time. From Portishead\u2019s <em>Dummy<\/em> on, her music walks the tightrope between organic and simulation, the bespoke singer and her replicable sample. Over Portishead\u2019s sonic palettes, which draw from spy thrillers and spaghetti westerns, Gibbons\u2019 lovesick singing feels acutely like a performance \u2014 like a character she plays. Called back to the stage in remembrance, Gibbons\u2019 reprisal of the Portishead catalogue feels more retrospective than introspective. Hurt gives way to artistry, and she performs \u201cRoads\u201d one more time because it is beautiful, not because it stings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And so Portishead is what Gibbons and the band leave the Masonic Temple on. When the lights went up, Gibbons hung around and chatted quietly; she signed things and clasped people\u2019s outstretched hands like she was Jesus. She was excited to be there, floating on the moment: running around on stage, sweet, giggling, breaking the gravitas of the preceding show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For a moment, I shifted on my feet. I wondered whether I could push into the yearning crowd, get something of mine signed and clasp her hand back. I wonder if I should\u2019ve held on. What I could\u2019ve done to gratify the person I once was.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But I wasn\u2019t this girl anymore. I didn\u2019t need \u201cSand River\u201d like I once did, though it is beautiful like an old friend, and still transports me to the Hudson River waterside. I got the sense, standing there, that Beth and I both were out of phase from the aura she\u2019d created; that the songs were for the other people, flocked and waiting for her hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>For a moment, the space between us was pregnable, and there was a time in my life when that mattered. But the trappings of celebrity is a life she has outgrown, and so have I.<\/p>\n<p>So, this was only a moment. It passed, and I stood and watched the signing, speaking and hand-holding. After giving herself to the crowd, she skipped girlishly offstage, and all I could do was watch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Arts Writer Amina Cattaui can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/music\/beth-gibbons-returns-to-the-stage-for-lives-outgrown-tour\/mailto:aminacat@umich.edu\"><em>aminacat@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a long-shadowed, sun-soaked Detroit, The Masonic Temple looked as sacred as its name suggests. All down the block, great mauve banners declared the venue\u2019s centenarian status. In the waning light, the building was a kind of old master \u2014 a fitting place to see the legendary Portishead frontwoman Beth Gibbons. Playing the techno-chanteuse of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1384,1385,118,1386,1388,1109,1387,1087],"class_list":{"0":"post-1243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-beth","9":"tag-gibbons","10":"tag-lives","12":"tag-outgrown","13":"tag-plays","14":"tag-temple","15":"tag-tour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1245,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1243\/revisions\/1245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}