Lithium Magazine

Review & photos by Mike Bax

www.wearejames.com
www.myspace.com/jamesisnotaperson
www.facebook.com/jamesisnotaperson

While walking to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, there was a young couple ahead of me and I could overhear them talking. The girl was asking the fellow what James sounded like, and he told her they sounded like Coldplay. While I don’t want to do Coldplay any disservice here, I think I’m safe in saying Chris Martin and company would readily tip their hats to James – and not so much the other way around. Regardless, this statement got me thinking:

What does James sound like?

There isn’t really an easy answer to this question. While most bands can easily fall into categorization with like-minded musicians over the past four or five decades, James pretty much sounds like James and nobody else. Vocalist Tim Booth emotes heartfelt and breathy vocals over all James’ material regardless of how mellow or heavy the song is - with a style that is rightly owned only by James. The band has garnered critical success more so in Europe than in North America over the past twenty five years or so, and their singles are both magical and many.

2010 saw two EPs released from James, collected together recently and issued as a double CD package entitled The Morning After The Night Before. A four-week run of live dates taking the band all over North America was announced to support the album, this Queen Elizabeth Theatre show being the Toronto stop.

Mercury Prize nominee Ed Harcourt took the opening duties, starting their performance promptly at 8:00pm. Harcourt started his performance behind a piano on the right side of Raife Burchell (drums) and Ashley Dzerigian (bass), and delivered a lovely forty minute set of morose and introspective songs that seemed to resonate well with James’ fans. Harcourt had three microphones set up over his keyboard and utilized them all through a couple of songs.

Halfway through his performance, Harcourt jokingly asked the crowd if they’d prefer an upbeat song or a depressing song, to a vocal approval of another depressing selection. He delivered a ‘cheese’ joke against the better judgment of Raife, to a few chuckles from the crowd, and finished off his performance nicely by dimming the majority of the house lights and swaggering to the edge of the stage to croon a somber number, holding a 50s style microphone for the majority of the song.

Tim Booth started the evening’s set at the back of the venue with guitarist Larry Gott, launching into a lovely version of ‘Sit Down’ to the thrill of fans at the back of the theatre. As he made his way down the centre aisle towards the stage, stopping to sing in the crowd at a few more points, he effectively got the majority of the crowd off their seats and on their feet for the duration of the performance.

With a dozen official releases to pull material from, the decision of a live set list for the band must be a challenging one night by night. A good portion of the evening was dedicated to material I hadn’t even heard before, and it’s a testament to James’ prowess as a performing band that this fact does nothing to sully their performance in any way. ‘Porcupine’, ‘It's Hot’, ‘Dust Motes’ and ‘Crazy’ all blended in nicely with material from James’ back-catalog. I bought the iTunes download this morning, and have been enjoying the new material all afternoon.

After playing a stellar live version of ‘Tell Her I said So’ Tim Booth addressed the crowd: “I hope we’ve known each other long enough that we can be comfortable around each other… Toronto has a reputation of being a bit laid back…” Booth then went on to explain that he didn’t want anyone to feel like they couldn’t let themselves go, and to feel free to dance about with wild abandon – a statement he made good on a few songs later as he invited forty odd fans to join the band on stage and dance about as they played ‘Laid’.

On stage, James is a seven-piece band. There is Booth on vocals, a guitarist, a bassist, a violinist, a trumpeter, a keyboarder and drums. For some songs, the violinist would join the percussionist to deliver a dual drumming experience (during ‘Tell Her I said So’) and the trumpeter would grab a tambourine and lean into the crowd, inciting whomever he could to sing along with the band.

All told, this evening’s show was a heartfelt and thoroughly entertaining experience. Booth asked the Toronto crowd if “the venue felt a bit stiff” and went on to say that he felt like there was a bit of a disconnect between him and the crowd. Booth then stepped off the stage and ventured into the audience singing ‘Say Something’ with various Toronto participants that he stopped adjacent to as he horseshoe’d his way back to the stage.

The final song of the evening was an amazing sing-along to ‘Sometimes’ that had virtually everyone in the house shouting the chorus of the song back to the band. The sing along went on for so long that James all walked to the front of the stage and took in the swelling crescendo delivered to them at top volume from a house of James fanatics. Tim Booth put his hand to his heart, the band all took a bow, and that was it.

Coldplay indeed… I wish I could have heard that same girl’s impression of the show afterwards, as I’m quite sure she was duly blown away… just like the rest of us.

Set List:
Sit Down
Ring The Bells
Seven
Dream Thrum
Porcupine
Tell Her I Said So
It's Hot
Getting Away With it
Tomorrow
Jam J
Dust Motes
5-0
Stutter
Crazy
Say Something
Laid
Sound

Encore:
Out To Get You
Sometimes