MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS 17.5.91

James, whose Gold Mother album has been relaunched on the back of their chart topping single Sit Down, with two of the tracks (including Crescendo, one of my favourites) being replaced by Sit Down and their previous single, Lose Control, are rumoured to be playing at this year's Reading Festival in August. In the meantime, if you're not an avid collector, you can get about £20 for the original version of Sit Down released on Rough Trade back in 1989 - a good year for investors in records by Manchester bands.

Secret One-Off Gig Is Off, Manchester Evening News 8.91

Whisper it if you dare - top Manchester band James have arranged a secret gig at the Hacienda tonight. Now say it loud from the rooftops - it's been cancelled.

The city's pop grapevine has been buzzing with the news that the band, whose last single was a top five smash hit, were to play a hush-hush warm-up gig before they headline the massive Reading Festival this weekend in front of 35,000 fans.

Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam, an old pal of the band's singer Tim Booth, arranged the special one-off concert for around 1,500 in-the-know fans at the top nightclub, even though the band played to 20,000 fans at G-MEX earlier this year.

But Tim has returned from a gig in Austria last week with a sore throat - and Dave is now busy spreading the word that the gig that no-one supposedly knew about is off.

"It was hard enough publicising it through word-of-mouth," says a disappointed Dave. "But it's a bit difficult telling people it isn't on when it wasn't officially happening anyway. "Tim doesn't want to give a half-baked show and wants to save his voice for Reading. He decided he couldn't risk it."