James @ Motorpoint Arena

“This is the kind of stupidity that sets us apart from every other band,” says James frontman Tim Booth as he launches the band’s encore by playing a brand new, unreleased track. It’s the final risk taken in a show defined by the band’s willingness to break the rules and try something new, strategies which may just be at the core of their massive longevity as they play to a packed-solid Motorpoint Arena, more than forty years into their careers as a band. 

About an hour and a half prior to this point, the band first waltz onto the stage and begin the set with Out To Get You, the peaceful and acoustic Laid opening track which nonetheless carries a sense of progression and quiet grandeur that makes it a perfect opening track. The lack of ostentation in the song itself means that my attention is drawn instantly towards the screens surrounding the band, which display an array of neon jellyfish swimming against a black background: watching them glide across the screen endlessly complements the song naturally, like noticing a flame pattern in a campfire whilst a crowd sings next to you. Throughout the set, there are many more deliberate pairings of design and song: during one newer track, for instance, the band appear to be real-time plugged into an AI algorithm which transforms them into skeletons in a hallucinatory floral parallel universe. Disregarding my ethical concerns about generative AI for a second, the idea beneath it all complements the track’s central refrain of “We’re all gonna die” beautifully, again highlighting the intent behind every decision made regarding the band’s presentation.

The band’s embrace of the arena format is one thing, but a band still needs to stand out next to it, and Tim Booth knows this. From the moment he appears, wearing an all-white outfit initially defined by a huge fur coat, it is impossible to take your eyes away from him. And he makes sure everybody in the room sees him in the flesh, too: during the instantly recognisable one-two punch of Come Home and Say Something, he doesn’t see the stage, wandering the circumference of the crowd and up the stalls, dancing with unsuspecting, elated patrons along the way. At one point, he even climbs upon the bar at the back of the arena, with the surprise, confusion, and “Do we still have to do our jobs for the next minute?” of the staff being something I will never forget. The band, meanwhile, holds down a particularly strong fort during these two tracks: the former, in particular, is a staple of the Madchester genre for its swirling, psychedelic guitar style complemented beautifully by two drummers in a state of complete tribal focus.

Besides these massive staple tracks, the night provides plenty of surprises which prompt strong reactions, particularly from the first few rows of the crowd. Attention in particular, commands, well, exactly that, as it builds from its ambient origins to a full-blown rave, complete with all the necessary intricate electronic instrumentation. Similarly, the band have been bringing out Greenpeace, the breakbeat ballad initially recorded for the environmental charity of the same name, at a time where it could not be more important: again, the use of two drummers in the live setup is extremely beneficial here, as they handle the transitions between the track’s two fluctuating halves with precision and grace. Trumpeter Andy Diagram also makes a fantastic addition to the band’s live presence, providing both another level of detail in the sound and making a strong presence visually tonight, wearing a bright red jacket under which, a t-shirt simply declaring “No more wars” peeks through. This is a choice which reaffirms the statement made through the inclusion of a song such as Greenpeace that we currently live in times where, much as we’d all like to, it’s impossible to leave the outside world at the door of any given concert venue. 

The ending stretch of the main concert - Tomorrow, Sit Down, and Sound - is as much defined as anything by how little any band actually NEEDS to do when they have songs such as those. They could easily coast through on how well-loved they are and how they’ll have the audience’s attention no matter what, but James aren't a band who take the easy way out. For Tomorrow, the band almost all end up congregating close to one another, creating a visual marker out of the camaraderie that is clearly part of how a band retains their longevity, with the song itself and its message of keeping “Faith that your luck will change” ringing all the more true for this. It’s an intense and sweeping statement that travels to the back of the room and then some, leaving me with the exact sense of hope and motivation that the song wishes for.

Sit Down could easily be ridden out without creating a sense of spectacle or anticipation, and still get a decent response. However, the track instead is given space to breathe and grow, with Tim Booth beginning by singing the first verse with only a mild piano accompaniment which doesn’t stop the whole crowd from singing along, a choice which momentarily leaves me wondering whether this is how they’ll perform the entire song. This only makes the sonic explosion of that instantly recognisable guitar riff more satisfying, and it is played to absolute perfection by all involved - in particular, the guitar work still sounds fresh and exciting, its sweet and fuzzy texture not being a lost art. It’s a performance which revels in the fact that the song is so ubiquitous and exists in different corners of culture (I heard a few Mo Salahs from behind me) and for this, it is truly beautiful. Closing out with the comparatively psychedelic and esoteric Sound actually works well, though, just by virtue of how its unusual structure and drawn-out progressive sections featuring churning bass and flickering synthesisers create the kind of climax that loops back around seamlessly from the satisfying build-up that we started the night.

But, we’re not done yet. After the successful gamble of opening an encore with an unreleased song, the aforementioned Nantucket, another song which features a sudden switch-up from ambient balladeering to a colossal electronic conclusion, comes Getting Away With It (All Messed Up), which seems like a slightly tongue-in-cheek sequencing decision after Booth claimed it was a massive risk to begin an encore with a new track. I believe that all good bands have what I call a “Manifesto song”: a track which summarises exactly what they do and why they do it, and I believe that this track makes a strong case for being exactly that, albeit more implicitly than some others. Besides the lyrics about appreciating life for its chaos and the need for community to get through said chaos, it also comes equipped with an epic, chamber-pop quality which solidifies that really, the only way we’re getting through the trials and tribulations is raw human emotion. Live, the orchestral elements really come to shine, giving it an additional layer of power and resonance. 

And then, of course, right at the end, the band just have time for Laid, even though I can see a clock from where I’m sat that clearly designates that by playing this they’re going over curfew. It doesn’t matter, though, because nobody is actually leaving this room until they play it. Earlier I said that the band could’ve easily coasted through Sit Down whilst barely performing, and this time, the band momentarily do exactly this, playing the opening riff before handing over to the audience to sing more or less the whole song, before launching into their own slightly sped-up rendition. The humour, bite, and equal affection and vitriol in the lyrics still hits with the same force that it would have done at the time, and the pure reaction of ecstasy from the crowd only proves this. There’s not much left to say about the track that hasn’t been said a thousand times over at this point, so I’ll leave this review on the note that you’d have to squint to find somebody not grinning as we left Motorpoint Arena and went into the night: and then, once you did find somebody, they’d be smiling with their eyes anyway.

Liz Clarke 

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Edited by Liz Clarke

Photographs provided courtesy of Cheek PR and James on Facebook, all by Ehud Lazin