james

howdy pop pickers

bit of an unusual one, this, as it features me (moi) getting news of a gig with quite short notice before it happened, and me (moi) of course going to it. for the clarity of any doubt, yes, it was the band James i went off to see. a band that i have spoken of quite highly here mostly for the superb album off of them about eight years ago, being Girl At The End Of The World, look you see.

the gig, billed as a "special warm up concert", was announced for the Stockton Globe a mere three weeks before it was due. i kind of panicked as the tickets were to go on sale at a time where i was likely to be knee deep in traffic. but then a "presale" register thing came up where i could get a ticket the day before, which i did. i had needed not bothered, as the show did not sell out. 

quite peculiar that James did not sell out a venue relatively smaller than usual for them to play in. mostly it seems that people in the area had bought tickets for shows on the "proper" tour and we do not live in a time where spending another (when fees are included) £70 on another ticket is a straightforward thing. also standing gigs at the venue have a bit of a reputation. this i experienced at Morrissey there, and heard of at the Paul Weller gig (i forgot to buy a ticket), where the main comment was that it felt like the standing area was far too packed. 

still, i was surprised when i turned up about twenty minutes before James were due on stage (i had no interest in the support act, in fact i do not think i have dared watch any support act since Uncle Colin and i endured the lady and her songs of space tampons at Adam Ant) and could easily stroll rather close to the front. which can kind of be seen in the poor picture above. 

quite a few people were also commenting on, or asking what, exactly, a "warm up" gig was. would this not be a proper show, then? yes and no. i guess they wished to practice material from the most recent album, or test it on an audience. to this effect the first hour (or so) of the gig was dominated by songs off of Yummy, which was reviewed on this blog somewhere. 

not sure why it was so, but never in my life have i seen so many people walk out on a gig. and it is worth mentioning, or reminding you all, that i went to one of the infamous "me and a tape" gigs done by Ian Brown not so long ago. still, i am baffled as to if it was people just fed up of "only" new stuff being done, or if things like the erratic nature of the performances and sound were making people think there might be something decent on tele instead. 

did i consider walking out? not really. closest, perhaps, was when i considered going outside for a cigarette (sorry) when my worst fear came and they performed the worst song the band has ever done, being Shadow Of A Giant from the new album. it's a terrible, forced and quite contrived effort at a really poor epic number. when it started the "balance" or "mix" of the sound went proper f****d, with it all being distorted and screechy. i think i stopped only to watch how Spinal Tap it was going to get. oddly the song felt a lot shorter in performance than the dragged out mess it is on the record. 

my phone is very clearly complete rubbish for pictures and video off of gigs. perhaps i am missing some setting or other. anyway, to show that not all (far from it) of the songs from Yummy are poor, here's a bit of video. 

that is indeed a chunk from what on the album is called Life's A F*****g Miracle, but has since been changed a bit to replace a certain word with another, so as to get it played on Radio 2. 

any other Spinal Tap moments? oh f*** yeah, more than i ever expected from a James gig. like, as a decent fan, i am aware they, in particular frontman Tim Booth, are idealistic, laid back hippies, that is a main amount of the appeal. but then no, i wasn't prepared for, and this happened more than once, the band starting off by playing different songs to each other and then stopping to look at Tim and ask him which one is it that he thinks they should play. 

during the gig one of the band, i think Jim, did stop and say it was a miracle Tim was there and the gig went ahead, as there was a wish to put him in hospital for unspecified reasons. well, it didn't really show, as his singing was superb. perhaps not as much crowd interaction as i expected, except for a bit where he said that he was doing that Brando trick as he had various song lyrics taped up around the stage. i am not sure many people caught this conversation. 

unlikely that the bloke stood somewhere to my side heard it, as he spent most of this gig shouting for the band to play Laid. not clear if that is because it is his favourite or if it was the only song they do what has the maximum number of syllables he can handle. would comfortably bet on the latter. 

eventually they did do Laid, it was the last of three encore songs. we also got, in the end, some of the better known songs, like Sometimes, Fred Astaire and, as in the (poor) video below, Sit Down.  

perhaps not to the levels of the infamous "ever get the feeling you've been cheated" moment with  Johnny Rotten, but there is an odd sense that with this "special warm up" gig we were all kind of invited to pay for a full tilt price ticket to be guinea pigs for the band to see how the new album material would really go down with audiences. not as well as hoped, i think is the answer they got. 

still, i remain glad i went, as seeing James had been an ambition of mine. sure the new album heavy set was not great and the sound issues didn't help, but yet when the performances were allowed to break through there's one truly amazing band. 

rather doubtful i shall see them again, though. mostly i believe i got all i would want from a James gig, and i am not certain i would need to do so again. if they happen to play close by to me once more then sure, but the only reason i would travel to see them is in the unlikely circumstances of a gig where they play all of Girl At The End Of The World being announced. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!