Portishead is reunited and ready to play in the desert

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND — As Portishead takes the carefully backlighted stage at the ancient, tatty Manchester Apollo, heavy shadows fall across the band's members. The concert spotlight has never come easy to vocalist Beth Gibbons or DJ-percussionist Geoff Barrow, though guitarist Adrian Utley is more comfortable in the live arena. Still, the English champions of blue modernism and bleak elegance might be the least natural "rock stars" since Pink Floyd, whose cravings for precise execution and anonymity they share.