It’s been almost 30 years since I last saw James perform live at Glastonbury in 1994, and that was a show to remember. Even from that long ago, that performance stayed with me. Surprisingly, a band with such longevity has only now scored a number-one album with Yummy.
Razorlight, as support, is an interesting choice, being chart toppers themselves and joining James for every show on the tour. They opened the night in great style, performing classic tracks which most are familiar with, a special mention has to go to “America” which was performed superbly and emotively by singer Johnny Borrell. It was a great way to warm up the audience, and soon enough, they made way for James to enter the stage to thunderous applause.
From the opening chords of the legacy track “Johnny Yen” from their 1986 album Stutter and the audience’s reaction, it was clear this would not be a standard performance in their hometown. Before this, Tim Booth requested the audience refrain from using mobile phones, which the majority respected. The atmosphere and superb sound quality at this new venue, packed to capacity, made it feel like the gloves were off to give us everything they had. Which they most certainly did.This setlist was a wonderfully curated work, which indispersed new tracks with legacy crowdpleasers. “Ring the Bells” came next, galvanizing the audience further. The new album tracks, such as “Rogue” and “Life’s a Fucking Miracle” are brilliant; the audience being largely unfamiliar with them did not dampen the mood at all, with Tim engaging in some crowd surfing under a spotlight.
Naturally, once the band broke into “She’s a Star,” it felt like everyone opened up to sing along, with Tim now in full flow and holding hands with audience members at the barriers. Stage presence is not a problem for this band, with two drummers, four backing singers, and the stalwart Jim Glennie on bass (aside from Tim, the only remaining original member) keeping things tied together.
As a surprise, during “Sound,” trumpet player Andy Diagram magically appeared in the stands (which in this venue is a considerable distance away, having to be pointed out by Tim), which was a great piece of showmanship. The crowd enthusiastically danced along to the extended version of this classic.
Two more songs from the new album, “Butterfly” and “Better with You,” followed. Some fantastic visual effects accompanied the former, and the latter has become my favourite song from the new album. The wonderfully romantic vibes were echoed on stage with a duet with singer Chloe Alper. This track reaches an immense crescendo, with the audience in complete captivation and the band in full swing. Following this up with the classic “Out to get you” was a great set design and perfectly placed.
Naturally, the classic “Sit Down” ironically had everyone in the stands on their feet singing along, the band pausing playing to let us all sing it back to them. Tim is moved by this, emphatically saying, “Wow, I was just back in 1990!”. The new track, “Mobile God”, was accompanied by some impressive augmented reality visuals, which were incredible. Tim permitted us to use our phones “if they were burning a hole in our pocket”. Suffice to say that people did want to capture the moment. This was followed by the classics “Tomorrow” and a personal favourite “Sometimes”, which again had the whole venue singing- in fact, for “Tomorrow”, Tim allowed the audience to start the song, which was a great moment.
What does shine through in this show is the effortless ease with instruments being swapped for various songs, guitarist Saul Davies managing to switch between guitars, violin and percussion easily, but special mention has to go to Debbie Knox-Hewson, who is a highly skilled percussionist and singer, and towards the end of the night performed a syncopated drum solo performance with drummer David Baynton-Power, which was technically impressive as well as thrilling to watch.
After a brief interlude before the inevitable encore, the band line up once again and, without much hesitation, break into “Come Home” with Tim straight back down to the audience to crowd surf once more. Followed up with the new tune “Beautiful Beaches”, after which guitarist Saul Davies addressed us, thanking Jim for starting the band back in the early 80s, mentioning the lineup changes but as well as saying they never dreamed of playing to an audience this size in their home town. Magnificently introducing “Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)” as “our fucking anthem“, the band once again threw their all into their performance, and to say this was powerful was an understatement- I’ve been at metal gigs which had less energy than this. Rounding it off with “Laid”, the perfect bookend for the night, the band leaves us again, this time with no cheesy second encore.
As a night to remember, this will stick in my mind for a very long time. It was one of the best live shows I have ever been to. Tim himself took to Twitter (from his customary post-gig ice bath) to say, ‘Holy shit Manchester, what the fuck was that? That was one of the wildest and most amazing reactions we’ve ever had. Right up to the top on every single level. Thank you. That was amazing!’
Truer words were never spoken, Tim.
Be the first to comment