Tour 2000

Leeds, October 21

First night of the tour, finally James in small venues playing new songs again. Spent the morning watching Manchester United v. Leeds. Su from Change of Scenery arrived around 4pm with a box of fanzines which needed stapling. Around 5pm we headed out to meet some friends in a pub near the venue. Roughly 2 hours in the pub drinking, speculating on the night’s setlist and working out who was going to which gigs, then off to a takeaway to get a quick supper.

When we finally located the venue which had no outside lighting and looked a bit ominous, at roughly 7:15pm, there were perhaps only 20 people in the queue, which we thought was pretty unusual. Su sold a few fanzines and then we wandered off, thinking we would try and get into the Union Bar, to get out of the cold till our tickets arrived but we couldn’t get in as we didn’t have NUS cards for Leeds Uni. Ended up outside the venue for an hour waiting on our tickets before we could collect them.

Got in after my hands were completely numb from cold. Inside the venue was even worse, slippery floors, long and thin, with ¼ of the room behind the sound desk, in between 2 crowded and ridiculously well-lit bars and the merchandise table. We noticed a couple of new shirts, but I didn’t particularly like the looks of them. Su bought shirts for her 2 sons. Shea Seager cam on around 8:15pm sounding like an indie version of Louise. Definitely not worth paying much attention. Luckily her set was only 30 minutes.

James came out at 9:20pm to an excited crowd. We wormed our way near the front off to one side, I could almost see for a change. They opened with 3 new songs, somewhat slow and mellow in tone, sounding a bit like some of the recent b-sides, “Stolen Horse”, “Pocketful of Lemons” and those ones. We’d heard one of them, “Seniorita” at V2000 and I had to admit it was growing on me a bit, although the lyrics are a bit naff, I think it’s the line “Don’t treat me like a god, treat me like a dog” that makes me cringe. Who knows, by the end of the tour I may be singing along happily. The other 2 sounded lovely. The crowd finally got going when the band launched into “Say Something,” “Fred Astaire”, and “Johnny Yen” before playing another 3 new songs. Again, we’d heard one of them, “Coffee and Toast” at V2000 and it was just as infectious and catchy as the first time, despite the silly chorus. The other 2 new songs were equally upbeat and catchy, guitar-based but still danceable. The rest of the set was a mix of old and new, with 8 new songs making it into the setlist, and no airing of either “Come Home” or “Sit Down” to both my surprise and delight. The new stuff sounds fresh and exciting, a real relief since I didn’t particularly like Millionaires. The band seemed to be enjoying the challenge of warming the crowd to unfamiliar material, but the crowd reaction was hard to gage, people enjoyed the old stuff, seemed to be concentrating on the new, but at least one guy that I heard left the gig complaining. We rushed outside quickly after the last song and Su gave me some fanzines to sell. Somebody must have enjoyed themselves because the fanzines went pretty quickly and I found myself swamped by drunken Yorkshiremen asking me about my foreign accent. But at least they bought fanzines. We headed back to Manchester about 12am and crashed. (Justhipper)

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