Setlist
Frozen Britain / Ring The Bells / Curse Curse / Interrogation / Honest Joe / Out To Get You / Walk Like You / Sometimes / Moving On / Sit DownSupport
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The Gathering Sound delivered a stunning anthology of James’ long musical career. It contained all the studio albums up to its release 13 years ago, plus many rarities and demos, a DVD, booklets, stickers and badges.
As well as four rarities and live discs, all the tracks from the following studio albums are included (and non-album tracks from the listed compilations) on a USB:
Stutter: Skullduggery / Scarecrow / So Many Ways / Just Hip / Johnny Yen / Summer Song / Really Hard / Billy’s Shirts / Why So Close / Withdrawn / Black Hole
Strip-mine: What For / Charlie Dance / Fairground / Are You Ready / Medieval / Not There / Ya Ho / Riders / Vulture / Stripmining – Refrain
Gold Mother: Come Home / Government Walls / God Only Knows / You Can’t Tell How Much Suffering (On A Face That’s Always Smiling) / Crescendo / How Was It For You? / Hang On / Walking The Ghost / Gold Mother / Top Of The World / Sit Down / Come Home (Flood Mix) / Lose Control
Seven: Born Of Frustration / Ring The Bells / Sound / Bring A Gun / Mother / Don’t Wait That Long / Live A Love Of Life / Next Lover / Heavens / Protect Me / Seven
Laid: Out To Get You / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Dream Thrum / One Of The Three / Say Something / Five-O / P.S. / Everybody Knows / Knuckle Too Far / Low Low Low / Laid / Lullaby / Skindiving
Wah Wah: Hammer Strings / Pressure’s On / Jam J / Frequency Dip / Lay The Law Down / Burn The Cat / Maria / Low Clouds / Building A Fire / Gospel Oak / DVV / Say Say Something / Rhythmic Dreams / Dead Man / Rain Whistling / Basic Brian / Low Clouds / Bottom Of The Well / Honest Joe / Arabic Agony / Tomorrow / Laughter / Sayonara
Best Of: Destiny Calling / Runaground
Millionaires: Crash / Just Like Fred Astaire / I Know What I’m Here For / Shooting My Mouth Off / We’re Going to Miss You / Strangers / Hello / Afro Lover / Surprise / Dumb Jam / Someone’s Got It In For Me / Vervaceous
Pleased To Meet You: Space / Falling Down / English Beefcake / Junkie / Pleased To Meet You / The Shining / Senorita / Gaudi / What Is It Good For / Give It Away / Fine / Getting Away with It (All Messed Up) / Alaskan Pipeline
Fresh As A Daisy: Who Are You? / Chameleon
Hey Ma: Bubbles / Hey Ma / Waterfall / Oh My Heart / Boom Boom / Semaphore / Upside / Whiteboy / 72 / Monsters and Heroes and Men / I Wanna Go Home
The Night Before: It’s Hot / Crazy Ten / Below / Porcupine / Shine/ Dr Hellier / Hero
The Morning After: Got the Shakes / Dust Motes / Tell Her I Said So / Kaleidoscope / Rabbit Hole / Make For This City / Lookaway / Fear
Rarities Disc: Willow / Say It With Flowers / Just Hipper / Mosquito / Left Out of Her Will / Doubts / Count Your Blessings / Weather Change / Pressure’s On / Jam 1 / Jam 2 / It’s a Fine Line / Hedex / Long To See / Scratch Card / I Thought You Were / All My Letters / Dust Motes
Live Disc: Folklore / Announcement / Burned / Hymn From a Village / Hang On / Maria’s Party / America / Sit Down / Sound / Honest Joe / Come Home / Johnny Yen / What For / Stutter / Fine / Bubbles / At The Seams
DVD – Come Home Live: Come Home / What’s the World / Whoops / Lose Control / Sunday Morning / Ring the Bells / Bring a Gun / Government Walls / Walking the Ghost / Next Lover / God Only Knows / What For / Sit Down / How Was It For You / Stutter
Vinyl: Sit Down / How Was It For You / Gregory’s Town / Ring Those Bells
Release Name: | The Gathering Sound |
Artist Name: | James |
Release Date: | 10th December 2012 |
Format: | Compilation Box Set |
Catalogue: | B01G7OHLC2. Barcode: 602527531298 |
The Gathering Sound is a stunning anthology of James’ long musical career. It contains all the studio albums up to publication, many rarities and demos, a DVD, booklets, stickers and badges.
The studio albums are: Stutter, Strip-mine, Gold Mother, Seven, Laid, Wah Wah, The Best Of / Unhinged (Compilation), Millionaires, Pleased To Meet You, Fresh as a Daisy – The Singles (Compilation), Hey Ma, The Night Before, The Morning After
The music is spread over a USB back-catalogue, three CDs or rarities and live recordings, a DVD and 12″ Vinyl. All the studio albums are on a unique J-shaped USB stick apart from The Morning After The Night Before, which is on CD (as a single album as the US import version was).
Also included are a 6-page A5 booklet featuring personal contributions from each of the band members and those associated with the group, including One Of The Three curator Dave Brown.
There is a 12″ scrapbook featuring previously unseen and rare photos, memorabilia, cuttings and many other items straight out of James personal archives including a complete timeline of James’s career annotated by the band.
And finally postcards, badges and sticky satin replica backstage passes, all in a 12″ presentation box.
Not found on Spotify.
Full set of promos of 3 x cd and 1 x dvd from The Gathering Sound box.
Rarities Disc: Willow / Say It With Flowers / Just Hipper / Mosquito / Left Out of Her Will / Doubts / Count Your Blessings / Weather Change / Pressure’s On / Jam 1 / Jam 2 / It’s a Fine Line / Hedex / Long To See / Scratch Card / I Thought You Were / All My Letters / Dust Motes
Live Disc: Folklore / Announcement / Burned / Hymn From a Village / Hang On / Maria’s Party / America / Sit Down / Sound / Honest Joe / Come Home / Johnny Yen / What For / Stutter / Fine / Bubbles / At The Seams
DVD – Come Home Live: Come Home / What’s the World / Whoops / Lose Control / Sunday Morning / Ring the Bells / Bring a Gun / Government Walls / Walking the Ghost / Next Lover / God Only Knows / What For / Sit Down / How Was It For You / Stutter
The Morning After The Night Before : It’s Hot / Crazy / Ten Below / Porcupine / Shine / Dr Hellier / Hero / Got The Shakes / Dust Motes / Tell Her I Said So / Kaleidoscope / Rabbit Hole / Make For This City / Lookaway / Fear
Release Name: | The Gathering Sound (full promo) |
Artist Name: | |
Release Date: | 1st September 2012 |
Format: | Promo Box Set |
Catalogue: | n/a |
Four discs in foldout plastic sleeve with full tracklisting. Does not include tracks from the vinyl or the USB.
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Tim’s tweet : “boston- power outage- blown amps- crisis as an opportunity- we rise as comedians to raw connection. special”
Tim’s tweet : “Small club rehearsal of new songs .Florida . Band on UK time collapse at 8. Me on California time up for a party .Hope they are awake for gig ”
Better than: vinegar on fish and chips.
For any diligent anglophile the announcement that veteran Britpop group James would be kicking off its U.S. tour on our shores — and performing in a quaint venue like Culture Room no less — was akin to the thrill local basketball enthusiasts must have felt when another James announced he would be bringing his talents down to South Beach. OK, admittedly, there was much less fanfare circulating this U.K. act’s concert in Fort Lauderdale than there was for Mr. Lebron publicizing he would be shooting hoops for the Miami Heat. But for fans of British rock, the chance to witness a perennial band like James — contemporaries of legendary English acts the Smiths and New Order — performing with its original seven-member lineup in a 650-capacity venue like the Culture Room presented an opportunity like no other.
A projection of the cover art for James’ latest album, The Morning After the Night Before, on a screen to the back of the stage hinted at the direction this Manchester U.K. band might take with its set. Shortly after 9:30 p.m., as the lights dimmed and James front man Tim Booth genially walked up to the microphone and welcomed everyone to “an intimate evening with James,” it came as no surprise that the group commenced the show with a couple of new numbers. “Dust Motes” began as a piano-led ballad and then burst into an orchestral frenzy a few minutes later, with violinist Saul Davie manically striking his strings with the force of a lumberjack. “Tell Her I Said So” was a synchronized number dealing with the singer’s 90-year-old mother dying in an old-age country home.
Andy Diagram’s muffled trumpet began matters on the first of James’ crowd pleasers, “Born of Frustration.” Booth riveted the crowd on this one with his Von Tramp-like yodeling and engaging la-da-das that would fit nicely on any John Hughes soundtrack. Mariachi brass led off a masterful rendition of “Ring the Bells” next — an up-tempo take that became a full-on jam session with guitarist Larry Gott shredding the higher frets on his axe as Booth went wild on the maracas and drummer David Baynton-Power pounced the skins like a madman. This double shot of tracks of off 1992’s Seven arguably might just have been the highlight of the night.
Throughout the evening, James proved how nimble a band can be, with the ability to go from revved-up blues action — as on “Out to Get You” — to reserved contemplation heard on the somewhat low-key version of “Say Something.” A straightforward rendition of “Sound” followed suit as Diagram’s sprightly trumpet notes propelled Booth’s idiosyncratic, rhythmic mini-seizure dance moves.
The group broke for a bit and then the ambiance was set with a little mood lighting for the next track, “Lullaby,” a stripped-down version of this song off of James’ only successful U.S. album, Laid. Featuring Booth’s crisp vocals and Gotts’ simplistic three-chord progressions, this track lived up to the “intimate James” billing Booth had promised earlier on. The crowd erupted with a Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan-like jubilee as the jangly intro to “Laid” was heard. The most popular James song did not disappoint as the group seemed to relish in its fans’ delight.
While the seven James bandmates were bowing at the end of the show, Booth mentioned to the crowd: “Bring your friends and children next time and we will come back to a bigger place.” In our opinion, most of the 500 or so people in attendance this night wouldn’t have changed a thing with this performance and would rather the storied group return to exactly the same place.
Personal Bias: I once rocked a mop top in high school.
Random Detail: One of James’ last performances before this one was before nearly 60,000 people at the Isle of Wright Festival.
By the Way: James’ latest, The Morning After the Night Before, came out just last week.
Review by Sir Mike Nuttall CBE (fuc(c)er)
Once in a lifetime a band comes along and changes your world forever. Other bands will come and go and some will truly move you but your ‘special’ band is already cast in stone, like knowing who your football team is or your political viewpoint. James became that band for me the best part of twenty years ago. Since then, they have sound-tracked my life from the teenage angst, to the happy holidays, through the start of new relationships, in the bitterness of unhappy endings, through the pain of loss and in times of fear. Or, to put it more succinctly, in love, in fear, in hate, in tears. Then they broke my heart when splitting up in 2001 and my world had changed, seemingly for good.
The reformation in early 2007 was like a long-forgotten light going back on and illuminating a beautiful but neglected part of a room. There have been some magical shows in the interim and a joyous new album but everything seemed to be leading to this one night in a rough borough of South London. Not that I know this as the acoustic guitar of Larry Gott crashes through the opening bars of Lose Control. The stage remains in darkness and it quickly becomes clear, as heads turn to the rear that the playing is coming from the top of this venue’s sloping floor. Gott and singer Tim Booth weave their way through the crowd, pausing at times to create a mini-stage and get up close and personal with those least expecting it. She’s a Star follows and the celebratory nature of the evening is set. A triumphant Ring The Bells and the dancey I Know What I’m Here For keep the party in full-flow after we have been treated to Oh My Heart from this year’s Hey Ma album, complete with a falsetto sing-off between Booth and trumpeter Andy Diagram. This is not going to be a greatest hits show though, far from it.
What happens next is what james have always done best. They move left-field and it is another half a dozen songs later before another single is played. That tells about a tenth of the story. Honest Joe is an album track from their mid-nineties experimental album Wah Wah. Industrial guitars and duelling megaphones make this the most pleasurable kind of aural onslaught. Then comes Stutter, a song a quarter of a century old and only previously released on a live album and as a b-side. Lyrically, it deals with loss of control. Sonically, it is earthy and you can feel that it comes from the streets of northern England. The audience are lapping it up almost despite themselves and you start to feel that just maybe the band needs to give them something familiar to grasp onto. Not this band. Porcupine is a brand new song, so new that Booth is reading the lyrics from a printed sheet. The song pulsates and throbs and the future appears safe in their hands. Then comes a four-song Hey Ma onslaught, broken up only by Getting Away With It (All Messed Up), the sole single from 2001’s Pleased To Meet You album. I Wanna Go Home is a crescendo of beauty and the climax, which sees violinist Saul Davies high up on a platform, pristine all in white, is orgasmic. Of Monsters and Heroes and Men slows the pace but certainly doesn’t diminish the beauty and just when you think that your heart is full, Upside tops it to the brim. Mark Hunter’s piano entwined with the guitar of Davies truly is the sound of a heart breaking. The title track of Hey Ma is the one political song of the night and is poignant on the day that yet another British soldier has lost his life in Afghanistan. Bush and Blair, I hope you never sleep peacefully again.
Here come the big guns. Born of Frustration sees Booth venture down onto the barrier, where he is supported by the crowd and despite swaying he never misses a note. A lazy and languid intro to Sit Down follows, Hunter’s piano again to the fore and as the song kicks in, Gott, Davies and Diagram join Booth at the apron of the stage, making quite a spectacular site. The final song of the main set is Sound, a top ten single from late 1991 but a song that the band clearly still love to improvise, never playing it quite the same twice. The extended outro is extraordinary and even the band don’t seem to know when it will end, to the extent that the drummer briefly gives up before joining in again. It is almost a relief when they leave the stage, giving us old-timers a chance to catch our collective breath.
If there is a theme to the night, then it is hats, with various band members wearing a variety of headgear including a bobble hat and a beret. As the opening bars of Out To Get You threaten to reduce grown men to quivering wrecks, the drummer claims the prize for the most ridiculous hat of the evening, a big flashing Christmas monstrosity. The music is the far from monstrous though with the violin again taking centre stage. A swirling Sometimes ends in a five minute sing-along, culminating with Booth declaring that he wants to remember the moment as he dies. We can only hope that he will need a very long memory. Then Laid sends the crowd into a heaving mass of limbs and sees the stage filled with dancers picked out if the crowd. As the band take their bow, the noise in the venue is deafening and an overwhelming victory is assured. Nobody could have complained if this was the finale but the band members clearly don’t want to leave just yet. With yet another strange twist, they choose to end with Top Of The World, an album track from 1990’s breakthrough record Gold Mother. It is one of the most stunningly gorgeous songs in their repertoire and as my eyes well up, the biggest struggle is to stop the tears from flowing.
It is only after the house lights finally come up that I become fully aware of the enormity what I have just experienced. A band formed more then twenty-five years ago has just given a performance so beguiling that for the first time since their reunion, I don’t feel like they could ever break my heart again. Obviously, I hope that there are many more James live experiences in the future and the appearance of a new song bodes well. But if for whatever reason I have seen them for the final time then I am at peace, safe in the knowledge that I was there when the class of 1982 graduated to become simply different class. To Tim, Jim, Larry, Saul, Mark, Dave and Andy, sincerely, thank you.