JAMES : PORTSMOUTH WEDGEWOOD ROOMS 14.6.08
Setlist : Upside, She's A Star, Oh My Heart, Ring The Bells, Hey Ma, Whiteboy, Tomorrow, Out To Get You, I Wanna Go Home, Sound, Sometimes, Laid, Waterfall, Say Something, Come Home
Following an interesting and occasionally inspired set by the Voluntary Butler Band, James took the stage just after 9.15 to a rapturous welcome from the sellout Wedgewood Rooms crowd. James haven't been down this part of the country since the reunion so this intimate warm-up gig for the next day's Isle of Wight Festival headline is a chance to renew acquaintances. Given the reason for the show, the main set is based around the planned set for the Festival, but with still a fair smattering of Hey Ma and it's particularly pleasing that none of the songs played from the album tonight feel out of place amongst the more familiar hits and the balance seems to work perfectly. The Wedge, as it's known locally, is a great little venue with a high stage and a bar off at the side which helps to cut down on chatterers. For such a gig, it's pretty much perfect.
Upside opens the set and sounds superb. The sound set up works well and there's some gorgeous echo effects on Tim's voice. The lighting though is seriously red. And too bright. And in your face. The whole night. And speaking of red, Andy prowls the stage in a rather unflattering red dress and shades. But if any man can get away with it, it's Andy. She's A Star is triumphant but is upstaged by a magical Oh My Heart. Tim says that anyone who's had a child (obviously not literally given birth) will understand what it's about. Ring The Bells once again proves that the single buying public in the UK around Easter 1992 had their heads up their arses and that there was some dodgy single selection going on in the James camp in the autumn of 1991. It's the song that captures everything about James in around five minutes and it sounds great tonight, as it always does.
Hey Ma has the crowd singing back the chorus, still a surreal moment. It'd have been great for the record company to have the cojones to put this out as a single. It could sound trite and superficial but the "boys in bodybags coming home in pieces" says more about the wars we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan than the pontification from some of the more celebrated members of the music industry.
Actually it'd be nice to have had a single at all. Whiteboy is joyous and would have fitted the bill perfectly. Maybe the rumoured use in a US car ad will change minds somewhere. Tim playfully admonishes the character in the song with a wag of his finger. Tomorrow keeps the pace white hot, before it drops down with a languid laidback and beautiful Out To Get You with some simply stunning violin from Saul. I Wanna Go Home is introduced as "becoming our favourite of the new songs" and whilst it doesn't get to the heights of the recent semi-acoustic shows in the States (not much could really), it builds and broods menacingly, the crowd clap along and I'm joined by a chap who sings part of the song with a huge beam on his face and then disappears and then it explodes in a way the very best James song do live. Tim called it the "new Johnny Yen" at one of the April shows. It's a spot-on description.
Sound still is as fresh and invigorating as ever as it moves seamlessly from one section to the next. Sometimes is stopped before the first chorus as sound problems on stage impact on the timing of it (those in-ears are probably still knackered), and is restarted with the slow version from April. Saul mocks the song stopping and starts talking about it happening at the Isle of Wight and imagining the Police stopping during Roxanne because Sting forgets the name of the song. There's no communal singalong this time as the band go into Laid, a nice set closer, although to be honest, I wouldn't have minded a bit of Sit Down. I've missed the old bugger.
The encore starts with another Mercury get your finger out track Waterfall. I think I've now got used to the missing verse. Andy's trumpet and the extended ending are the highlights. Tim comes down to the audience for Say Something, which has a rawer edge than it did in April and works better for it. Come Home is the one song that benefits most from Larry being back in the fold, it now sounds as ragged, on the edge of collapse and damn brilliant as it did back in the early nineties.
And then they're gone. There's a whole load of songs on the setlist not played (Senorita and Junkie were sound-checked) and the set was probably just over an hour and a quarter, but it was a great gig all round and hopefully an indication that there will be a fair chunk of Hey Ma keeping its place in the December sets.