Portishead battled through early technical difficulties to triumph at their London gig last night.

The Bristol band were three songs into their set at the Hammersmith Apollo when they were forced to leave the stage.

Having just finished a rousing rendition of ‘Mysterons’ Adrian Utley informed the sold out crowd they would have to sort the difficulties out.

However, it didn’t stop them from pulling off a mesmerizing performance that drew mainly from ‘Dummy’ and new album ‘Third’.

Playing sixteen songs the set bought to fruition the ideas behind the new material with new single ‘Machine Gun’ being one of the most arresting and visceral tracks of the night.

Before departing the stage at the end of the main set Beth Cowley apologised to the audience for the earlier problems saying, “Sorry for being a bit crap”.

A three song encore then followed featuring ‘Threads’, ‘Roads’ and ‘We Carry On’ with standing ovations after each.

Portishead’s tour continues tomorrow night in Edinburgh and Wolverhampton on Sunday before returning to London for another gig on April 17 at the Brixton Academy.

The set list was:

1. Silence
2. Hunter
3. Mysterons
4. The Rip
5. Glory Box
6. Numb
7. Magic Doors
8. Wandering Star
9. Machine Gun
10. Over
11. Sour Times
12. Nylon Smile
13. Cowboys
    
14. Threads
15. Roads
16. We Carry On

(by Daniel Melia)