None.
8,000 tickets for this show sold in under half an hour, proof of the pulling power James still have in their hometown. On a fine summer’s evening James delivered a set covering the whole thirty years of their career from early Factory singles to songs from their latest and greatest La Petite Mort. We were also given a glimpse of Manchester’s future with an excellent opening set from Blossoms.
Castlefields is still baking in the unusually warm Manchester early evening sun by the time Blossoms take the stage, all dressed in black and determined to impress their biggest crowd to date. There’s a lot of bands doing the “psyche” scene at the moment, and whilst there’s some great bands on the darker fringes of it, there’s none doing the lighter shade better than Blossoms. They deliver a set of songs perfect for the setting and the weather – tracks like Urge and Madeleine as well as You Pulled A Gun On Me – show that they’re set for much bigger and better things. Vocalist Tom Ogden already has the voice and the confidence on stage and they’re an incredibly tight outfit for a band so early in their career. Remember the name.
You’d forgive James for coming out and playing a crowd pleasing hits set tonight – an alcohol fuelled crowd (less said the better of the pricks near us in shorts, white plimsolls and shades who decided that not listening to the band and pissing on the floor was a good idea), a celebratory atmosphere and issues with Tim’s voice that saw the cancellation of the warm-up gig in Oxford the previous night.
It’s James though. They start off slowly with Out To Get You, current single Moving On and a surprise resurrection of Seven album track Heavens. Unusually for this type of event, the sound is pretty decent and there’s no sign of the issues that caused concerns about whether the show would go ahead. Tim goes down onto the barrier for Heavens and almost gets dragged into the crowd.
The crowd raise their arms en masse as the intro to Ring The Bells kicks in, singing along every word in one great big Mancunian communion. Walk Like You ends in a typical Jamesian jam, on the verge of breakdown, chaotic and utterly thrilling, not just repeating the album note for note like so many bands do.
We’re then treated to a blast from the past. Two songs, both Factory singles, older than quite a bit of the crowd and the support band – What’s The World and Hymn From A Village – given a new lease of life, as fresh and vital as they were back then and a curveball move in an environment where the crowd are gasping for hits. Bitter Virtue, the one real curio on La Petite Mort, is another brave, but typical James choice. Over the chatter, it works surprising well in this environment.
Say Something gets an ecstatic reaction, people shut up and sing along. It’s one of those classic James singles, not their strongest song but one that unites a crowd and speaks to everyone. The backend of the set is choc full of these songs of unity – Sometimes, Getting Away With It, Come Home, Tomorrow, even Sound – that explain the lasting legacy of James and their ability to play this size of venue and sell tickets at a rate that the music press and media ignore because it suits their agendas.
We also get first single of La Petite Mort, Frozen Britain, a magnificently ramshackle romp of a song as well as album closer All I’m Saying (the setlist had Sit Down as an alternative in case Tim’s voice couldn’t get the higher notes, but there’s no such issue). An incredibly personal song about the death of a close friend, it’s transformed into a musical celebration of her life and Tim’s relationship with her, but it could apply to each and every one of us.
Sometimes ends in a wonderful communal singalong, when the crowd just pick the song up and run with it. It’s magical when it works like that, generations of fans as one and it’s picked up again later between the main set and first encore and to get them back for the second encore.
Curse Curse is hopefully the next single and is an absolute monster of a song. Driven along by a rampant dance undercurrent, it references Lionel Messi, voyeuristic sex in the next hotel room and tequila. Typical James in the sense it’s actually quite atypical of them.
After a frantic, bonkers Laid, the crowd refuse to go home, calling the band back one more time. Instead of the obvious, we get Johnny Yen, first released back in 1986, a lasting James anthem that has survived line up changes and keeps being revamped, reinvented and engrained in the hearts of the faithful. It’s a fittingly awkward close to events.
None.
An in-store gig and signing to promote La Petite Mort
Walk Like You / Frozen Britain / Curse Curse / Bitter Virtue / Interrogation / Moving On
n/a
n/a
James’ first ever gig in Slovakia
Walk Like You / Frozen Britain / Come Home / Laid / Interrogation / Jam J / Out To Get You / Say Something / Moving On / Curse Curse / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes
n/a
n/a
A tea-time in-store performance to promote the launch of La Petite Mort.
Frozen Britain / Interrogation / Bitter Virtue / Walk Like You / Curse Curse / Moving On
n/a
n/a
Released 11 years ago, La Petite Mort was the well-received follow up to The Morning After/The Night Before mini-albums, based around themes of death and rebirth. Features the award-winning Moving On.
Walk Like You / Curse Curse / Moving On / Gone Baby Gone / Frozen Britain / Interrogation / Bitter Virtue / All In My Mind / Quicken The Dead / All I’m Saying. Bonus: Whistleblowers
| Release Name: | La Petite Mort |
| Artist Name: | James |
| Release Date: | 2nd June 2014 |
| Format: | Studio Album |
| Catalogue: | COOKCD604 |
Review from Even The Stars.
La Petite Mort is James’ 13th studio album. For a band that’s been dismissed by the media so many times, it’s a miracle that they’re still here. Even more so when you listen to La Petite Mort and it has all that fire still burning in its belly that characterised their very earliest work. And this time the flames have reached your face and are meeting you head on.
There’s hardly a week goes by without a band reforming for a big payday denied them in their pomp with a few big gigs, a tour and then some half-arsed attempt at recreating former glories by repeating the formula that made them popular in the first place but without the vigour and excitement that increasing years has drained from them.
One of the first big reformations was James back in 2007 and as a band that never quite fitted in to any of the scenes they were lumped in with over the years, they produced their best album with 2008’s Hey Ma. Since then they’ve been relatively quiet in terms of recorded output save for 2010s mini-albums The Night Before and The Morning After, which didn’t quite scale the heights of their predecessor, primarily because James’ modus operandi of getting in a room and jamming and not leaving until they had songs had been replaced by an internet-driven process driven more by geographical necessity than anything else.
La Petite Mort thankfully sees a return to the tried and trusted formula, jammed in a series of sessions in Scotland, Manchester, Athens and Portugal over the past two years and then recorded with Killers producer Max Dingel in London. Similar to the impact Eno had on James’ recorded work in the Laid / Wah Wah period, Dingel pulls off the difficult trick of transferring that unique James energy live into a distilled recorded output without diluting the power and vitality that is at the heart of one of possibly their best work over the thirty years they’ve been a band.
Immediately you’re struck by how strident the record is. The beautiful keyboard driven opening to Walk Like You sets the tone for the rest of the piece. There’s been a lot written about how this album is about death, but this song seems to talk about youth rebelling against parentage imposing its own beliefs on them – “we will not walk like you, talk like you”. It weighs in at over seven minutes, although it doesn’t feel like it by the time you get to the end. As with many great songs, there’s more ideas in the song than other bands fit into an album. It breaks down half way through and emerges as almost another song, espousing the positivity of “let’s inspire, let’s inflame, create art from our pain, find a love that’s as deep as it’s holy.”
Next up is Curse Curse and it’s already caused controversy amongst die-hard fans. Whilst it’s shamelessly electro in its outlook, attacking your ears with a mélange of pads and keys, it’s simply a fantastic pop song. The keys mean there’s a lot more Mark Hunter in this record than previous ones, pushed up to the fore in the mix. Lyrically, it’s intriguing, fitting “I turn the TV up, Copa Del Rey, Messi shoots and scores, a hundred thousand came” into a song as an analogy for the couple in the next hotel room going at it hammer and tongs is no mean achievement, nor can you imagine Tim Booth necking shots of tequila.
Moving On is the big single from the album and rightly so. Even from its first live appearance, it stood out as the lead track. It effortlessly pushes its way into the canon of James anthems, but with a twist. Whilst there’s been some pretty dark subject matter in many of James’ best-known moments, none are as dark as the death of Tim’s mother. It’s turned round into positivity based on the belief that they’ll meet again somewhere in the future and that life should be celebrated not mourned with the refrain of “leave a little light on”.
Gone Baby Gone is testament to the new found hardness to James’s sound. A deep grumbling bassline starts the song and has centre stage over the first verse and Tim joins in over the top, lamenting the end of a long relationship before keys and drums take over the simple chorus of “gone baby gone baby gone”. The rest of the song careers gloriously from Morse-Code style keys, fierce guitar licks and Tim singing, almost oblivious to the chaos around him, about desire, loss and an indifference to love and its complications “love love love love love love, blah blah blah blah blah”.
Next up is the first focus track Frozen Britain. As a standalone track, it took a bit of warming to but now it’s a glorious celebration of love found from the depths of despair. It continues with references to death and birth, exulting the Emily of the chorus to come to bed and make a boy out of the protagonist. It simultaneously manages to sound like a direct descendent of the almost casual almost throwaway energy of Laid whilst expressing the deep joy of love of Just Like Fred Astaire. No mean feat.
The album takes a step back in pace, but not intensity, for Interrogation. It starts with an almost wistful trumpet call before Tim explores the concept of judging and damning others by standards that he doesn’t always apply to himself – “all I judge, I have become, interrogation of my own” – in a similar vein to the “when I point the finger, three pointing back” of Down To The Sea. The production draws the best out of the song, it feels like there’s no instrument there for the sake of it – Dave’s drums underpin the whole thing whilst keys and guitar and the occasional trumpet flourish whilst Tim plummets the depths of self-evaluation – “verdict, we find the accused guilty”.
Next up is Bitter Virtue and it’s the most difficult to evaluate. It’s another song of self-assessment – “living, so close to loving, I is the problem, over solution joining circles”. It’s very simple in execution, almost in a loop in the verses, before the plaintive chorus of “a bitter virtue, I’d rather live in sin, there’s pleasure in your suffering” and some subtle backing vocals.
All In The Mind is opened and driven along by a beautiful ascending piano line that’s on the verge of going off-key. The song comes back to this for the verses. It’s a simple song, but the execution of it is stunning, crisp, clear, uncluttered, allowing the focus on Tim’s vocal including fifteen seconds of holding one note. Again, it focuses on mortality, but with the obliquely positive spin on it that courses through this whole record.
A dreamy undulating keys and piano combination introduces the short but snappy Quicken The Dead and its rejoicing of “dodging the bullet”, but acknowledging in the chorus “we’re already dead”.
The closer is a show-stopper. All I’m Saying is about the untimely death of Tim’s mentor Gabrielle Roth and him being unable to say goodbye – “never said I love you, hope you knew”. It’s a intensely personal song, and whilst not many of us could claim to have Tim Booth’s outlook on life, it addresses those feelings of regret at loss that only the most cold-hearted could deny.
Of course, this doom and regret gets turned round by the music, building slowly at first before exploding into a crescendo of instruments in the way the finest James moments do.
Listening back to the album, there’s a few key points to note.
Firstly the production fills me with a series of contradictory thoughts – it’s managed to encapsulate everything about James and distil it into a record that probably most accurately reflects the band.
However, it accentuates those edges that distinguish James from their contemporaries, past and present, protruding to a point where it doesn’t take away any of the personality and unique character of the band.
When Eno did this, it occasionally allowed the band to drift, but this is vehemently focused and there’s not a note on the album that’s superfluous. It allows Mark to the fore and the rest of the band to breathe. It’s both a big production and a minimal one at the same time. That won’t make sense until you hear it.
This allows Tim to deliver probably his finest vocal performance over the course of an album. Perhaps it’s the depth of emotion that runs through every song and the subject matter, but he’s never sounded more purposeful. He’s feeling every single word and, by the end, so is the listener.
So where does it sit in James’ canon of work? It’s too early in its life to say whether it’s their best album compared to albums I’ve grown up with, but it’ll be on that ever-rotating list with Strip-Mine, Laid and Hey Ma.
La Petite Mort pour toujours.
A tea-time in-store performance to promote the launch of La Petite Mort.
Frozen Britain / Interrogation / Bitter Virtue / Walk Like You / Moving On
n/a
n/a
An intimate launch show for La Petite Mort.
Une petite naissance pour la petite mort. James unveiled their majestic new album in an intimate sweaty sold-out show at London’s Electric Ballroom last night. We were there to see the premiere of the new songs and some old favourites.
For a band of James’ stature and with a back catalogue as rich as theirs presenting a new album is always a difficult business. They’re selling the size of venues they do on their history despite their current output standing toe to toe with their past, but they’re awkward, contrary buggers and they believe in the new material and tonight they present eight of the songs that make up La Petite Mort, out next Monday.
Most people are hearing these new songs for the first time and, although, it’s a dedicated crowd from all four corners of the UK and beyond, you can feel the love in the room for the new songs. Current single Moving On closes the set and sees the ballroom raise its arms as one and sing along. Next single Curse Curse ditches some of its supposed techno elements but is still a massive piece of guitar driven rock that you can dance to. Walk Like You, All I’m Saying and Interrogation are beasts of songs that threaten to hit you like a tsunami and leave devastation in their wake despite the subject matter being death and self-analysis. Frozen Britain is a raucous mess, jaunty, slightly lop-sided and crazily brilliant. Quicken The Dead encompasses delightful piano rolls and an impassioned vocal, which Tim explains is about making the most of every moment because death is just round the corner. Even Bitter Virtue, the most dreamy, delicate, fragile beautiful song on the album, holds its own even though you can tell they’ve not quite nailed how they want to do it live yet.
The rest of the set is primarily greatest hits based save for a rampant Johnny Yen and an electronic onslaught of Jam J. Laid sees Tim down on the barrier, Tomorrow is as breakneck rollercoaster as always. Waltzing Along has continued its resurrection, and even Say Something has benefitted from a rest and sounds rejuvenated. Come Home sounds as relevant and vital today as it did twenty five years ago. Sound and Sometimes, as ever, never fail to amaze, the former descending into an improvised jam and the latter being brought to an abrupt end and taken, without prompting, by the crowd and sung back at the band. Getting Away With It is almost the band’s anthem now and it’s stretched out and given a new lease of life as a result.
The house lights almost come back up, but they come out for a second encore. Tim has already told us about their experience of playing a 2 minute version of Sit Down earlier in the evening for The One Show, but they skirt the obvious and give us a beautiful rendition of Top Of The World. Saul’s violin, as it often does when he picks it up, steals the show.
There’s a great camaraderie about James on stage these days. They seem at one, connected to each other, laughing and joking at each other’s expense, connecting wonderfully when they start to improvise. They now have a magnificent new album to take to their audience and make them love it. Last night was a perfect start.
Read the review at Even The Stars.
