James is not a person. Tim Booth is. He’s just not a very happy person. Photos by .
Monday nightap show at the came off at times like a charismatic service, with nearly all in the audience signing along with just about every word — correctly and passionately.
It was almost as if those in the audience, while obviously near-ecstatic to be in the same room with their long-suffering heroes, were as exhausted as the band. Unfortunately, the troubled band too often merely seemed exhausted. Understandably so.
James formed in 1981, and has since endured 27 years of inconsistent popularity, lower-than-expected sales and a perceived mediocrity that I thought was exclusive to Mark E. Smith’s (also from Manchester, whom James supported at some early gigs). At the same time, the band has maintained a slow but growing commune of like-minded fans that identify with the band’s post-punk sensibilities with an almost cult-like passion.
The Ogden was two-thirds full, with an average age somewhere between 35-45. Before the first song got underway, lead singer Tim Booth humbly explained that they “didn’t expect to see many” people at the show, so the band had decided to start off with “some decidedly quiet and soft” pieces. No matter, the audience was mesmerized from the first note from Booth’s throat, and the show picked up a little more life with each song.
The seven-piece band played for 90 minutes, and kept the crowd enraptured for nearly all of it, despite the fact most of the set list was made up of newer material, rather than the band’s considerably more popular hits. Booth stopped singing a number of times, holding the mic above the crowd to sample the overwhelming singalong that was flooding across the floor and onto the stage, and back to our ears. The accuracy and fervency of the audience was impressive.
Admittedly, I fall into the class of fans more partial to James’ more heavily airplayed oeuvre, though I am aware of their historical gravity as a rock influence throughout the ’80s and ’90s post-punk movement. Still, the band’s overall somber weightiness was surprising. Their songs repeatedly followed the form of the anthemic: starting slow and powerful, and then building up to a loud, melodic and driving precipice, followed by a protracted “final jam” that eventually led into the next song.
The sad part Monday’s show, really, came with the realization that James is still essentially a band in the midst of a reunion tour, after taking a seven-year hiatus from recording together. While technically proficient – rather, damn-near perfect – and while they even approached some uncharacteristically (for typical reunion tours) genuine band-pervasive emotion, I wasn’t convinced most of the band members were actually having fun. They often seemed slow and methodical enough to make the show seem just a bit too routine.
James plays a style of music that has been taken to near-perfection by bands like The Editors and Interpol, who achieved their mastery by removing the vestiges of U2 and Simple Minds from that sound style, and replacing them with the desperation and DIY of Joy Division and their punkier brethren.
As they returned to the stage to play a few encores, Booth apologized again to the crowd, this time for the plethora of new songs, and thanked them for their participation. He then promised that from then on out, the audience would be serenaded with some more familiar work and comfortable hits – and they did just that. Pulling from their later ’80s popularity, the band played “Say Something,” “Sit Down” and “Sometimes.”
For the last of the encore songs, they finally offered up their mega-hit “Laid,” to an all-but satiated crowd. It seemed to work well to send that crowd home on a hopeful note. It’s a perfect pop song. As Booth pulled more than 20 audience members on stage to dance with the band, I believed it could not have been represented more romantically, or more completely.
Billy Thieme is a Denver-based freelance writer and regular Reverb contributor.
is a Denver photographer and regular Reverb contributor.
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