Tour 2000

Su was up at 6:30am to catch a train back to London, leaving me with her car to wait on John, also from Change of Scenery, to come claim both car and fanzines that afternoon – too late for the book signing at the Royal Court of the new biography, Folklore. Laurie sent me a message around 2pm asking me to pick up a book for a friend of hers at the book signing so I made a frantic phone call to someone who was actually going.

John’s train was late so we didn’t get off to Liverpool till nearly 5:30pm and had to stop to pick up 2 more people in Eccles before heading over. Made it to Liverpool about 6:30, drove in circles looking for parking and found a reasonable queue outside the Royal Court. John took us to a local pub for a couple of drinks, before heading back over to the venue at about 7:30pm. When we got back to the venue, I was told that the band had, quite kindly, agreed to let me take some photos, even though they weren’t allowing any press, apparently they were feeling quite friendly and sympathetic towards their fanzines/websites. So, I left John and company outside and headed in to wait for the person who would take me into the photo pit.

Inside, I bumped into a couple of friends, Rich and Chris, who had helped with the last 2 James Nights, and Mac, a regular on the Stutter mailing list for the last 3 or so years. Chris was excited because he’d been to the book signing and when Tim had discovered he couldn’t afford to buy a ticket to the gig had given him not only a ticket, but an aftershow pass. Certainly the band seemed to be well up for things, particularly making sure we all had a good time.

About 9pm someone from the band’s management arrived to escort me under the stage to the pit, and gave me instructions about what I was allowed to photograph. James came out to even louder applause than the night before at about 9:10pm and opened again with 3 new songs. The first of which, in particular, was really spectacular. I managed to get about a zillion photos, before being sent back into the crowd about 5 songs in where I found John standing by the wall near one of the doors.

Inside the venue some small boy was running around snatching bags and we watched security chase him into the crowd and drag him back out. The setlist was much the same as the night before, with a few of the old classics swapped out for other old classics – most notably, “How Was It For You” replaced “Fred Astaire”. The band were in a great mood, and Tim joked around with the audience, and at one point we even saw Jim Glennie smile. The crowd danced and sang like mad to the songs they knew, but there seemed to be a mass migration to the bar with every new song. Personally, I was amazed and excited to see James finally being daring enough again to not play exactly what they knew would give them thunderous applause. Change is always a good thing for a live show, it keeps things interesting and certainly it must get boring to play the same songs every night for 4 or 5 years running, so perhaps James themselves were feeling energised by the newness of the whole set. Either way they were even more lively than Leeds the night before.

After the show, John gave us all some fanzines to sell, although more people tried to steal them than wanted to buy them. John, apparently, was approached by more than a few people who recognized him from years past and were avid readers. We headed back to Manchester around 11:30pm, and went back to John’s friend’s for some tea and chips before making it back to my house around 2am. I wish I were going to Edinburgh now. (Justhipper)