JAMES : WEMBLEY ARENA 10.12.01 page 3

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by Daisy

Deciding to go to wembley on the very last moment, I was incredibly lucky (I’m getting used to this). Of course I could only get a seated ticket (and for a terrible spot, I’m afraid), but my dear friend Jayne managed to swap it for a standing ticket just a couple of hours before the show. :-)

I tried to get to the standing area a while before Turin Brakes started, I wanted to be on the right side of the stage and as close to it as possible. I got lucky, once again finding the perfect spot right in front of Michael Kulas.

I was expecting some surprises for this special night, but I got much more than I expected. For starters they actually changed the setlist! ;-)

Laid was a great song to begin with, people were singing and dancing along right from the start. It was fun to be in the middle of all those british fans (well, and also danish, german, and american), and everybody seemed to know almost every song.

I was crossing my fingers that James would play Waltzing Along, and it came right after Laid, with a remark from Tim: “A happy song for a happy moment!” I wasn’t so sure if this was a happy moment but, as the show went on, that’s how I felt. Tim was happy, Saul was happy, Michael was happy, Jim was happy. I saw Adrian smiling (he’s got a pretty nice smile!) and Mark too. Can’t talk about Dave though, he was a bit far and hiding behind his drums.

I’m not going to talk about all the songs of the show, but I tell you they were energetic, happy and the crowd loved every second of this show.

I was wishing they would play Top Of The World and they let it to the first encore. Only Mark, Jim and Adrian were on stage though, so when Tim started singing we were looking around to find where he was. And he was far in the back of the arena, in the middle of the crowd. I could only see him through the screens, but it seemed to me that the fans back there loved it, specially the ones who got to hold Tim’s hand (I bet they were in shock for hours!). When the violin part came, I wondered what was happening. Where was Saul? Could this be a recording? Noooooooooooooo.  No way!!!! Saul was on the left side of the stage, on a high level, near the front of the seated places and not too far from the stage. I must say I enjoyed this “large stage”, including almost the whole venue, and the people who were close to Saul and Tim at that time must have appreciated it as well.

Higher points of the night: Andy Diagram, Larry Gott and Brian Eno and also the attitude of the band. 

I had never seen Andy Diagram live and I loved it! He’s a “show man”, if you get my point, moving around the stage, playing with Tim, going further in the front, teasing the audience - he was brilliant!

As for Larry Gott, his best moment, in my opinion, was when him, Jim and Tim were playing the acoustic version of Protect Me. I don’t know if it was because of him, or just the song, but it was a magical moment. Oh yeah, and that chair he made looked pretty nice!

It was fun to see Brian Eno sharing the stage with the band he was working with for so long. I didn’t even know how he looked like, so I had to ask people who was that man when he got on stage. It was funny to see him trying to dance “à la Tim”, and Michael sharing the microphone with him in the song “of the boy who wanted to be struck by lightening”. Actually I was very happy to see Michael back to his usual self, cheering up the audience, jumping around, singing, dancing and having fun. That’s exactly how I wanted to remember him as a part of James.

It was an incredible night. I lack the words to describe it. I felt amazed and happy, there were times when I stared at the band in amazement, a total admiration of the talent these guys have. I danced, I screamed, I yelled, I sang, I jumped around as I do when I’m happy. When it got to the end of Sit Down (the last song), the people were singing it back to the band, again and again and again. It felt like forever, it was a brilliant moment, maybe a way for us to say thanks to those fabulous musicians who mean so much to us. The band was happy and so were we. We had been on top of the world together, and it was great!

As a final remark, I have to say that James are a brilliant band, who wrote beautiful and powerful music. I was glad that I got to know the band and probably almost every single song that they’ve created. And some of these songs, like Sound and Johnny Yen, that were played that night have a characteristic that I haven’t found in songs from any other band. They build up in a crescendo, growing more and more and then, either they end in an extremely high moment, or they go back to a quiet place, as if there’s a moment to rest and then, maybe, they’re going to do it again. Let’s hope that whatever comes from James will be another high.