James opened their short two-date tour of
Portugal with a sold out show at the Multiusos de Guimaraes and a nod to the
local Pinheiro festival as well as tracks from their 2014 La Petite Mort
alongside back catalogue classics.
Tonight’s 5,000 capacity show is sold-out,
testament to the popularity of James in Portugal. Guimaraes is a city of 150,000 people –
equivalent to the size of Canterbury to put that into perspective, although the
queues of cars still outside the venue an hour after James left the stage
suggests that the crowd came from far and wide to pay homage to their unlikely
heroes.
They open with Walk Like You, the opening
song from La Petite Mort, and the Portuguese fans break into clapping, some of
them not stopping from the opening bars of this right through to the close of
Sometimes. It’s a song built for big
halls like this, the big bold sound contrasting with the parental advice to a
child in the lyrics. Frozen Britain has
a similar feel, its opening chords unmistakable and with enough room in the
song for Tim to dance, and there’s an element of the crowd tonight that are
fixated on his every move so there’s a mid-song roar when he starts.
Perhaps due to the height of the stage
creating a sense of distance that needs blowing away, Tim ventures down into
the pit and then into the seats that flank the arena, perching precariously on
a barrier, for Seven. Whilst Sometimes
and Laid were what cemented Portugal’s love of James, it was with Seven that
they first toured here and it’s these songs that get the best reactions
tonight.
Next up are Curse Curse and Laid, perfectly
matched together. Whilst Curse Curse
gets a fantastic reception in its own right, the sea of arms stretching way
back into the venue, it’s Laid that sends the place completely bonkers. It’s
like watching a reverse Poznan as everyone in the building bounces and bounces,
singing along to every word.
She’s A Star gets the difficult job of
following that, but it’s a song that’s struck deep into the psyche of the
audience here. All Good Boys, a
Millionaires b-side that didn’t even make the Ultra b-sides album, is next and
works beautifully. The Portuguese
audience, unlike a majority of their UK counterparts, stand and listen to a
song few of them probably know.
Just Like Fred Astaire sees Tim make his
way down to the barrier and then start walking on the shoulders of the crowd,
all without dropping a word. It’s made a
welcome resurrection in the set on this tour – its subject matter, a man falling
in love, isn’t traditional James lyric territory, but it strikes a real chord
here. At the end of the song Tim falls
backwards and is carried on a sea of arms back to the front. Tim jokes about the reaction he got going
into the crowd in Glasgow and the contrast to how well the audience looked
after him.
They then divert to Greenpeace, which
builds to a wall of noise and light as it reaches its conclusion as Tim’s
two-mic approach tells two sides of the story of environmental ruin. It contrasts with PS, a gorgeous ballad
musically that finishes in a delicious Saul violin solo that stuns the crowd.
The whole place goes wild again for Getting
Away With It (All Messed Up), a song that seems to have particular resonance in
continental Europe as it never fails to get a euphoric reaction. It’s probably coming to its time to take a
rotation out of the set, but you absolutely cannot deny the power it has to get
an audience going. Tim doesn’t need to
sing the first verse because it’s sung to him whether he likes it or not.
Moving On is the one of the new songs that
has made the most impact due to its subject matter and its video and we were
told earlier that it’s the song that Portuguese radio picked up on of all the
singles so far. The venue becomes a sea of
arms as far back as you can see. Gone
Baby Gone sees dancers invited up from the crowd on to the stage as has become
tradition and its stop-start staccato vibe has everyone dancing as Tim prowls
the stage looking for people to dance with.
Sound is next and has a twist. As it reaches the breakdown session, thirty
drummers in traditional costume march on stage playing the same beat. November 29th is the start of a
two week celebration in Guimaraes which starts with an all-night party to which
the soundtrack is the Nicolinos (as the drummers are called) and this
beat. Somehow, despite about ten minutes
soundcheck, it works beautifully, James improvising around the beat. As the song reaches its conclusion, five
thousand people holler the “mah bah ooh” refrain back at the band, before they
allow the drummers their own minute or so in the spotlight, paying respect to
local tradition that the crowd react ecstatically to. The sound on stage is matched by that of
stamping feet, both on the arena floor and in the raised seating.
Come Home finishes the main set and almost
feels like the interloper at the party with what’s gone before it, partly as it
doesn’t occupy the same heady place in the James canon of songs here than it
does back, but mainly because there’s just been one of the moments you get at
some James gigs that you can’t follow.
Andy appears on the balcony at the top of
the seats for the start of Born Of Frustration and Tim sings most of it in the
seats on the opposite side as the Portuguese crowd ape his Indian cry. Interrogation is bold and powerful, exploding
at the point the verdict of the song is delivered. This type of song (see also I Wanna Go Home
and Of Monsters And Heroes And Men) characterize the reunion of James more than
most in that they give the band space and room to take them off at tangents
whilst retaining control.
Stutter sees another set of drummers on stage, this time less traditional and more fluid in their approach. The crowd look on with a slight sense of bemusement at the carnage that unfolds on stage. It’s a song that’s been there since the start of James and Tim explains the story about how it’s when his tongue took control of a situation when he was pursuing a girl at University and when she finally succumbed he talked his way out of it. It’s a song that has grown with the band as they’ve developed and one that has always found its way back into their sets. Tonight it’s a rampant sprawling beast, backed up by a light show that almost blinds you but which changes in time with the music (no mean feat given the pace of the song), the additional drummers adding to both the aural and visual chaos. Larry adds a new rougher intro to the song as Tim stands inches away from him, encouraging him to take it to new places and then later he does the same with Jim.
They decide to forego the second encore
ritual and play Out To Get You. Again, they’re almost drowned out by the sound
of the audience clapping along, although they do shut up when Saul’s
jaw-dropping violin solo takes charge as Tim retreats to the drum riser to let
the rest of them take centre stage.
Sometimes is the inevitable yet completely
appropriate conclusion to the evening’s events.
It’s the song most synonymous with James here. The crowd sing along then as it reaches its
conclusion, they take up the refrain and then Saul kicks in with a fierce
guitar as the others move to bid their farewells sending them back for an
improvised outro, again very different to other nights, before finally bringing
things to an end, with the audience streaming out afterwards still singing
along.
There’s a very special connection between
James and Portugal, one that’s very hard to pinpoint. But they are both incredibly passionate
people, seen as the underdog but possessing a natural talent and love of life
that they harness for them to live their life the way they choose rather than
the way others would want to dictate to them, and when you look at it that way,
it feels like the most natural bond you could imagine.
James played Walk Like You, Frozen Britain,
Seven, Curse Curse, Laid, She’s A Star, All Good Boys, Just Like Fred Astaire,
Greenpeace, PS, Getting Away With It (All Messed Up), Moving On, Gone Baby
Gone, Sound, Come Home, Born Of Frustration, Interrogation, Stutter, Out To Get
You and Sometimes.
James' official website can be found here. They are on Facebook and Twitter. Some of the band - Tim, Larry, Andy and Dave - are also on Twitter.
Even The Stars also runs the James fan site One Of The Three which is also on Facebook.
Main photo credit - Angus Jenner (@mediocretouring)
Main photo credit - Angus Jenner (@mediocretouring)
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