Live review: James at Utilita Arena Newcastle

The Manchester act, fronted by Bradford’s Tim Booth, are back in favour after six years apart from 2001 and a more recent six-year spell as strangers to the top ten, having not long since topped the charts with Yummy, their 18th studio album, released in April, and they’re on the road at the moment to promote it.

That tour includes a sellout date at the UK’s biggest indoor venue, Manchester’s 23,500-capacity Co-op Live next Friday, June 14, and the third largest, London’s 20,000-capacity O2 Arena, the night after.

It’s also seen them return to what’s now Utilita Arena Newcastle for the first time since 2001, and though they fell a fair way short of filling its 11,000 capacity yesterday, June 5, they still drew a crowd a good few times bigger than those of 2,000 or so they’ve been playing to at the city hall and what’s now NX in the interim, as well as what used to be Sage Gateshead over the river.

Though not many music fans’ favourite venues, arenas arguably suit James better than smaller halls, partly because there are so many of them – nine core members plus four backing singers this tour – but mainly because they’re better able to accommodate Booth’s outsized on-stage antics.

Even his trademark woolly hat and baggy trousers are out of proportion to the 64-year-old within them, the former looking better suited to a head the size of ex-Newcastle United manager Sam Allardyce’s and the latter appearing capable of fitting the entire band in at the same time if put to the test.

A giant cattle-shed gives Booth, always keen on audience interaction, more to work with, as well as more mobile phones to grumble about, and, assisted by a wireless microphone, he didn’t hang around, clambering onto the front-of-stage barrier during set-opener She’s a Star and spending the entirety of their sixth song, Getting Away With It (All Messed Up), venturing among the crowd prior to engaging in a bit of crowdsurfing later on.

Half their 20-song set, stretching to almost two hours, was made up of greatest hits and the remainder was new material, plus two tracks from recent albums and one album track from 1993, live favourite Five-0.

They played no fewer than seven of the standard version of Yummy’s 12 tracks – Better With You, Hey, Life’s a Shocking Miracle, Mobile God, Our World, Shadow of a Giant and Way Over Your Head – and all were more than capable of holding their own against songs with four decades’ more familiarity on their side, as were two other recent tunes, 2021’s Beautiful Beaches and 2016’s Nothing But Love, the latter preceded by a singalong rated as “better than Aberdeen” but “not as good as Stockton”, venues there having hosted their two shows immediately prior to their visit to Newcastle.

The hits played, besides She’s a Star and Getting Away With It, were Laid, Sometimes, Tomorrow, Waltzing Along, Come Home, Sound, Jam J and, restored to its early 1990s pomp rather than delivered in acoustic form, as has sometimes been the band’s wont of late, Sit Down.

All were delivered just about as slickly as I’ve ever seen James manage, given the pride they usually take in bungling intros as a result of overambition in their setlist rotation, with only one muck-up noticeable all night and Booth continues to be better able to work a room, as the expression is, than any of his peers I can think of.

He tweeted, or Xed, to fans afterwards about “how special the gig was”, adding: “I suspect we will find it hard to top on this tour. That was magic,” and that feeling was clearly mutual and deservedly so.

Next up for James, with Razorlight as support, are Glasgow’s Ovo Hydro tomorrow, June 7, and Leeds’ First Direct Arena the day after.

Tickets for the former cost from £45.35 and for the latter they’re £46.50 upwards. For details, go to https://wearejames.com/live/