One Of The Three - The James Band Archive

Category Archives: Live Performance

Chelmsford V Festival – 20th August 2000

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Setlist

Laid / Sometimes / She’s A Star / Coffee And Toast / Stutter / Out To Get You / Someone’s Got It In For Me / Senorita / Johnny Yen / Tomorrow / Sound / Ring The Bells

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Stafford V Festival – 19th August 2000

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Setlist

Sometimes / She’s a Star / China Girl / Stutter / Out To Get You / Junkie / Someone’s Got It In For Me / Tomorrow / Coffee and Toast / Sound / Ring The Bells

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Review

Ted Kessler, NME

Time for a rest. Time for couples to smooch in the golden sunset. Time for James to soothe and caress the heartstrings with more poignancy than you thought them still capable of. They nearly blow it with a cover of Bowie’s “China Girl”, but the abundance of singalong anthems clears the palate nicely for the heavyweights to follow.

Mark Beaumont, Melody Maker

And James are the last cigarette for a condemned rock festival, managing to mash a cover of David Bowie’s “China Girl” and a new song that sounds like The Specials playing “Pac Man” between their intoxicating pop bombast.

Beijing Heineken Beat Festival – 13th May 2000

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James’ first visit to China to play a festival in Beijing’s Ritan Park

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James – The Highpoint of Heineken Beat Music Festival – Beijing Evening News

For every person present in Ritan Park for the Heineken Beat Music Festival, the 90 minutes from 21:30 to 23:00 on May 13th, will be very hard to forget. The explosive atmosphere created by the UK’s James gave people a real idea of the power of popular rock and roll music. At last Beijing had the chance to experience this kind of passionate and exciting live music performance.

The difference between the wild cheers and waving arms and dancing feet at Ritan and the enthusiasm of the thousands of people last year at the worker’s stadium for Zhang Huimei’s concert was fundamental. First of all, on stage was a famous band from one of the original homes of rock and roll and secondly, the music resounding in the arena was far more likely to set the blood pumping in your veins.

When James was announced, the trees just outside the wall surrounding the altar of the sun were full of people. On May 13th there was an audience of more than ten thousand people in the park, both inside and outside the arena.

China Stands For James – Music 365

Despite the implications of their anthem Sit Down, James have made history in China by becoming the first western band to be granted a standing and dancing crowd.

Normally strict crowd controls were relaxed at the Heineken Beat Music Festival, held at Ritan Park in Beijing, where more than 10,000 people rocked to the Mancunian indie stalwarts’ set. The reaction to the concert has been dramatic enough to spawn two half-hour documentaries on the band, which were recently screened on Chinese TV.

In the Beijing Evening News, China’s most popular newspaper, a review of the concert positively fizzed with enthusiasm: “The explosive atmosphere created by the UK’s James gave people a real idea of the power of popular rock and roll music. At last Beijing had the chance to experience this kind of passionate and exciting live music performance.”

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

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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.

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

London Wembley Arena – 12th December 1999

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Setlist

Sit Down / Ring The Bells / I Know What I'm Here For / Crash / Laid / Johnny Yen / Someone's Got It In For Me / Shooting My Mouth Off / Waltzing Along / Say Something / Surprise / We're Going To Miss You / Vervaceous / Stutter / Just Like Fred Astaire / She's A Star / Tomorrow / Sound / Top Of The World / Come Home

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Nigel Williamson, The Times

There is no iron law of rock that says great bands have to burn out after two or three albums. Of course, most do, but those who manage to hang around often produce their best work a decade or more after the first flush of youthful success. The Charlatans and Blur are two that have matured to make the most rewarding albums of their career this year.

James belong in the same category. They have nearly fallen apart more times than the Northern Ireland peace process but have somehow survived to enjoy the most productive spell of their 15-year existence. Last year they were rejuvenated when The Best of James gave them their first number one album. This year their new offering Millionaires was only prevented from repeating the feat by the marketing juggernaut that is Shania Twain.

On the last night of their British tour at Wembley they were brimming with confidence. It showed in the way they opened with their best-loved song, Sit Down. There was singer Tim Booth, foot on the monitor and hanging off the mike stand, every inch the star. It was over-the-top and magnificent, and the crowd went wild. “So that’s the encore out of the way,” he quipped.

On last year’s tour the band had played an exhilarating show of hits. Here they mixed in songs from Millionaires in a ratio of roughly two to one in favour of old favourites, but as this still meant we got seven of the dozen songs on the new album no one could complain about a lack of freshness.

With a line-up of three guitars, the new songs mostly had the same bright, ringing quality as ever – although with James things are seldom what they seem and the most uplifting piece of anthemic stadium rock can have much darker lyrics.

First new song up was I Know What I’m Here For, a classic slamming anthem. Surprise, written about a suicidal friend, and the spell-like We’re Going to Miss You were further examples of how the mature James have learnt to perfect the epic grandeur of their trademark sound but combine it with provocative and sometimes disturbing lyrics. Even the brazen romanticism of the gorgeous Feel Like Fred Astaire had a darker undercurrent.

The hits, including Come Home, Laid, Sound and She’s a Star were greeted rapturously. For the encore Booth donned a long silver coat and, suspended by a harness, flew slowly over the audience like Peter Pan in the Christmas panto. The effect was both preposterous and awesome. A bit like James really.

Manchester MEN Arena – 11th December 1999

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Setlist

Laid / Ring The Bells / I Know What I'm Here For / Crash / Say Something / Sit Down / Johnny Yen / Someone's Got It In For Me / Shooting My Mouth Off / Waltzing Along / Sometimes / We're Going To Miss You / Vervaceous / Stutter / Just Like Fred Astaire / Out To Get You / Destiny Calling / Tomorrow / Sound / Top Of The World / Come Home / She's A Star

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Mike Barnett, Manchester Evening News

James umpteenth album Millionaires has been met with what is known in the trade as mixed reviews.

Even their most ardent fans would have to admit that it’s not their most inspired piece of work and sales, by their standards, have been comparatively modest.

Frontman Tim Booth, who, despite the presence of half-a-dozen colleagues is James, acknowledged as such when he playfully introduced We’re Going To Miss You, the new single.

“It’s going straight into the charts at number 55 next week,” he offered, more in hope than expectation. And even that might prove to be a touch optimistic.

Producer Brian Eno coated Millionaires with an over-bearing polish which camouflaged its contours and near-strangled its nuances, but on Saturday night, tracks like I Know What I’m Here For, a typical James call-to-arms, and the haunting Someone’s Got It In For Me sparkled into verdant life.

As a live act, they know how to fill huge halls with flowing cascades of sound. My gig-going friend Phil, like me a fan of many years, said at one point that “James give good arena” and he’s dead right.

The fascinating thing about James is watching how they’ve evolved over the years. Sit Down, almost their theme tune, has now disappeared from the set. Such is it’s familiarity, that was no great loss, for everyone knows what they say about familiarity.

But there are still some constants. Dressed at the beginning of the show like an extra from Doctor Zhivago, Booth still dances like a flicker-book unfolding in the wrong order.

His eye for the theatrical is also still sharp. Having earlier ascended the stairs to say hello to his Mum, watching from a private box, Booth closed the show by clambering onto the trapeze normally used for launching Manchester Storm’s ice-hockey mascot onto the ice.

Floating above the packed house like an all-seeing angel, it was Tim Booth all over.

Glasgow SECC – 9th December 1999

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Setlist

Laid / Ring the Bells / I Know What I¹m Here For / Crash / Say Something / Sit Down / Johnny Yen / Someone¹s Got It In For Me / Shooting My Mouth Off / Waltzing Along / Sometimes / We¹re Going To Miss You / Vervaceous / Stutter / Just Like Fred Astaire / Destiny Calling / Tomorrow / Sound

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