James are out on tour with their new album, Yummy. If you haven’t listened to it, you should, it’s very much a return to form for one of the best live bands in the UK today.

★★★★★ (5/5)

JAMES PERFORMING AT LEEDS FIRST DIRECT ARENA
PHOTOCREDIT: JOHN HAYHURST

I had the pleasure of going along to see them play last year and so was looking forward to seeing them again, especially the new stuff.

The Leeds Direct arena is a great venue, and the acoustics are always good, for a band with James’s relaxed approach to using different instruments and sounds I knew this was going to be good.

The support act were Razorlight, a great band in their own right who had been quiet for a long time but who are now very much on the comeback trail (festival bookers take note).

Razorlight delivered a support set very much based on their old material with just one new song thrown in but given their back catalogue contains some of the biggest songs of the 90’s that’s not a bad thing. They go the crowd to sign along, they got them to clap and all in all Johnny Borrell and gang left everyone in a better mood than when they started. It was also pleasing to see so many of the crowd turn out for the support, I wish that would happen more often.

James were almost apologetic in the way they came on stage, there was no big fanfare, no fireworks but when you’re as good as James as you really don’t need any of that.

The first half of the set relied heavily on the new album. It was very well received, and the crowd clearly already knew many of the lyrics. It’s an album that feels like its designed to be played live and it definitely works that way. One small gripe on my part was the three guys next to us who had clearly decided they weren’t interested in the new stuff and only wanted the hits. They were quite vocal at the end of each new song with their displeasure, even getting to the point another member of the crowd asked them what the point of their being there was. My question is, what made them think that any of us around them was remotely interested in their views? From what I could overhear of their conversation (which was more than I wanted) they didn’t have a brain cell between them.

Anyway, back to the music. It was excellent, Tim Booth is a brilliant front man but what makes a James gig so good is just how good the rest of the band are as well, they are all excellent musicians, both long standing members and newer members, and they all clearly love what they do. They had two drum sets, violins, trumpets, guitars, acapella singing and some of the now notorious Tim dancing. It was all in all brilliant.

I’d go as far as to say I think James are one of the best live acts out there just now, there is no dialling it in for this band, no giving it 50% percent, every time they get out there, they give it their all.

I wasn’t happy they didn’t play Born of Frustration as it’s a favourite but the singalong to Sometimes was immense and hearing them playing Sit Down is always a joy, even if this version needed to be halted before the final chorus for a medical emergency in the crowd. The brilliant thing was though once that was dealt with (and the crowd were all very supportive) the band picked straight back up as if it had never happened and got the crowd going again.

If you haven’t seen James live or listened to the new album you need to do both. The new album is some of their strongest work in years and live they are stupendous!