Portishead, Verve set for U.S. return

INDIO, Calif., Feb. 23 (UPI) -- British alternative bands Portishead and Verve are to perform their first U.S. show in nearly a decade at California's Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

The bands, which each saw a modicum of U.S. success during the 1990s, will perform at the festival in April and their presence is expected to help reinvigorate their careers and boost festival sales, Billboard reported Friday.

"The fans like them," said Paul Tollett, whose company organizes the annual festival, "but also they attract other bands to the bill and give a serious feel to the show."

Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley said the desert festival in Indio, Calif., will come as his band releases its first studio album in nearly 10 years.

Yet Utley ensured potential listeners that Portishead has been keeping busy during the band's time out of the recording studio and that the April festival will feature the band's new sound.

"There was never no Portishead," Utley said. "It was just we'd had enough, and we didn't have any ideas. We all got on with various different things, but we worked on each others' projects. There was always a Portishead."