One Of The Three - The James Band Archive

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London Shepherd’s Bush Empire – 8th May 2000

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Setlist

Top Of The World / Say Something / Crash / I Know What I'm Here For / Destiny Calling / Vervaceous / Junkie / Swell / Senorita / Out To Get You / Stutter / Born of Frustration / Sometimes / Laid / Someones Got It In For Me / Come Home / Tomorrow / Sound

Support

Kent / Coldplay

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Zoe McGeechan, Music 365

Well, tonight was a game of two halves. There’s no other way of describing it. Because, even to die-hard James lovers, most of the gig was excruciatingly dull.

They kick off the set – well, drift off really – with a swoony lullaby.. It is beautiful, it is serene, but it’s not the hand-clappy choral chant that the crowd are here to see. The first half of the set, mainly lifted from last year’s frankly appalling ‘Millionaires’, would be more appreciated in the confines of a well-padded lounge or boudoir. Well, somewhere comfortable, anyway, should you feel an urge to sleep.

And while the music sounds milky and ineffectual, Tim slithers, pivots and raspberry ripples around his little iso-booth world – what is the Perspex for? To fend off the sweat splashes of the pretty string section, one suspects.

This ‘mature’ James have left all the fun behind. There’s no whooping, yodeling or spasming in their new material, but that’s what we want. A glimpse of greatness sneaks out with ‘Destiny Calling’ but the lid is firmly pressed down to make way for more of James’ newest sound, monotony.

As the night drags by, it’s gradually punctuated with hits, a rogue ‘Say Something’ here, a renegade ‘I Know What I’m Here For’ there, and its so obvious that the audience aren’t here to be wooed by smooches or serious propositions. They want to jump and clap and whoop and wail.

You start to think James need a lesson or two in assembling a setlist; when you have a handful of hits, it’s always best to include them in the set, for instance. Witness the rapturous reception of the EMF-esque ‘Come Home’, or the godsend of ‘Laid’, which conjures up a huge anthemic explosion.

So there’s no ‘Sit Down’ – fair enough, this isn’t a youth centre disco – but it does climax with the goods, the pure pop that James are all about. The encores burst into crescendos of strings and guitars and the audience finally get to whoop their little hearts out

Beguiling us with an encore of hits so we leave feeling elated; a cheap trick, but everyone falls for it.

Video

Part of MTV’s 5 Night Stand series of gigs. Support came from Coldplay.

T In The Park – 11th July 1999

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Setlist

Destiny Calling / She's A Star / Crash / Waltzing Along / Someone's Got It In For Me / I Know What I'm Here For / Say Something / Sometimes / Tomorrow / Sit Down

Support

n/a - Festival

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Tommy Udo, NME

James – Main Stage 6.45pm Sunday

“This is for everyone who wants to have fun,” says ageing bad singer Tim Booth in his piss-whiny voice. “Everything after us is so serious.”

James are well past their sell-by date as the stream of tuneless new songs are trotted out. One song, about victims or something (written apparently with Paul Gascoigne in mind) is a truly cringe-inducing ballad that would be better suited to some overwrought loser pub band, maybe a self-penned obligatory social conscience song about Kosovo or veal calves or something. Booth drags it out painfully.

They animate the crowd when they play the hits – ‘Come Home’, ‘She’s A Star’ and of course ‘Sit Down’ – all of which are a decade old. And people are sneering at the Mondays for cashing in on the past?

James were shit in the 80s, wrote a few good pop tunes and have relied on them ever since. God help us if they are still churning out this pap in the middle of a festival bill in 2009. Seems like that long already.

Video