Tonight
is a dull wet night in the 2nd city, the streets
are quiet and it seems like summer is so far away,
but luckily a band are in town tonight that has
the power to bring that summer feeling to the
Birmingham Academy, and that band is James. This
band has been going since the early 80’s
but only really picked up commercial success in
the 90’s with their huge summer anthems,
they continued into early 00’s where they
faded out of the limelight a bit but their back
with a new UK tour ending with a sell-out date
at the MEN Arena in Manchester showing that they
still have plenty of fans who are
excited to hear old classics and what direction
their newer songs have gone down.
The night is started off by Liverpudlian legends
Echo and the Bunnymen. They start the night with
a collection of slow alternative rock songs, that
sound great but aren’t really up my street,
it’s a bit too slow for me, with the band
hardly moving around and a lack of a personal
touch, singer Ian McCulloch, doesn’t seem
very interested and his voice starts to grate
on me throughout the set but it must be an age
gap or something as the rest of this jam packed
room sings along to most songs and thoroughly
enjoy themselves. They play an
hour long set with songs such as Lips Like Sugar,
Do It Clean, Seven Seas, Zimbo, Nothing Lasts
Forever. All this before cumulating in a powerful
end with massive anthem The Killing Moon before
fading out with The Cutter. They sound was perfectly
levelled and the songs are powerful and mean allot
to this audience but for me the lack of stage
presence and type of songs made this a rather
poor opening for a band as lively as James, but
I suppose when a band as legendary as Echo and
the Bunnymen does something, they do it for themselves
and their fans, they don’t need any more
press and they don’t need to push themselves
to a new audience as they’re already a big
name and are fine with this.
There
is a short interval between the two bands and
this time allowed me to take in how packed the
venue was, I don’t think I’ve ever
seen The Academy this busy before, there is no
space to move the bars are heaving and the balcony
has rows of people stud round behind the seats.
It is crazy that a band that hasn’t had
any mainstream success since the 90’s can
still get this many people at their gigs, it just
shows how much they mean to people. The audience
is also full of mainly mid 30’s men and
women all ready to relive their younger years
so maybe this adds to why to venue is so packed.
James
take to the stage in darkness, well 3 of the Manchester
band do, the lights come up and the audience are
treated to an acoustic guitar/trumpet version
of Lose Control, the stage lights are barely on
and this adds to the atmosphere that James are
trying to build up, as the song slowly builds
up towards the end and the rest of the band come
out one by one adding more instruments to the
song before it ends with the whole band on stage,
barely lit and playing softly. The song comes
to an end and before anyone has a chance to think
the lights blast and the band go loudly into classic
hit Waltzing Along which gets the whole crowd
singing along. It seems that James are very good
at setting the mood and know exactly how to get
the crowd warmed up. They sound amazing, with
all the levels set out perfectly and with all
the band using the best equipment to make sure
they can here themselves play so they can give
the crowd the best quality live sound they can.
Waltzing Along comes to an end and singer Tim
Booth jumps off stage and into the photo pit,
before he climbs the barrier in his traditional
big colourful trousers, he stands on top of the
barrier for the whole song as he interacts with
the audience making them hang on his every word
and rush to the front to get near to him, it’s
great to see that they’re not doing like
the support and just resting
on their laurels they’re still entertaining
to the best of their ability. They carry on their
set with a mixture of old and new with songs like;
Sound, Interrogation and Say Something before
going into what is known as their biggest song
Sit Down, which contrary to belief they don’t
get the audience to sit down and move their hands
(anyone who was at a disco at the time of the
singles release will remember the horrors of that
dance).
They continue to raise and lower the atmosphere
and tempo by playing more greats including; Top
Of The World, Star, Moving On, Born Of Frustration,
Come Home and Sometimes. All of these show there
versatility in sound with the howling anthem that
is Born Of Frustration to the almost dancey euphoric
song Come Home. They leave the stage to huge applause
before coming back to end with Johnny Yen, Getting
Away With It and Laid.
Overall tonight’s gig has been a mix of
styles with the slow alt rock sound of Echo and
the Bunnymen to start the night and ending in
the upbeat and party atmosphere that is James.
It’s good to see James are still going strong,
and I hope they come back around soon as they
played a stonking set which sent everyone home
feeling great.
Echo And The Bunnymen 2/5
James 4/5
Review By James Daly
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