Shooting Our Mouths Off

Each year, the beautiful grounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew host a week-long festival called Kew the Music. This year’s festival ran between 11-16th July and acts included Passenger, Razorlight, James, Mary J Blige and All Saints. We caught James on their Saturday night headline slot and upon entering the gates and seeing both the sights (and signs for ‘Hamper Collection’), it was apparent that it was going to be a different kind of night, but nevertheless, a very special one.

Opening the band’s headline set, Andy Diagram took to the stage alone with a trumpet fanfare, using loops and effects controlled by a mobile phone improbably strapped to the top of his trumpet with a fish slice. He got the crowd going with a trumpet rendition of fan favourite ‘Johnny Yen‘ from the band’s debut album, Stutter. As the applause died down, the rest of the band joined him on stage, and within seconds the unmistakable intro to ‘Sound‘ rang out. It was followed by the beautiful Moving On, which frontman Tim Booth dedicated to his sister, who had sadly lost her husband just days earlier. Originally written about the deaths of his mother and best friend, it’s one of the band’s most affecting songs, and Tim’s vocal reflected the emotion behind it. That mood carried straight into the powerful, self-lacerating ‘Interrogation’.

‘How Was It For You saw Tim make his first trip to the barrier of the night, where he cheekily changed the lyric, “do you really need that drink to disarm defences”, to “do you really need that iPhone to disarm defences” in response to the sea of phones held up around him before diving into the crowd for a surf. His next venture into the audience came during ‘Hymn From a Village’, taking him beyond the dancing area at the front and into the crowd sitting further back with picnics and camping chairs, before a problem with his in-ear monitor briefly interrupted proceedings. Despite the band’s excellent performance, they were hampered by strict decibel limits throughout the set. At one point, the sound desk increased Tim’s vocal level after fans passed a sign to the front to make them aware of the issue.

For a band with fourteen albums behind them, James put together a setlist that struck the right balance between old and new. Classics including ‘Come Home‘, ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Getting Away With It‘ sat comfortably alongside newer tracks ‘Attention‘ and ‘Nothing But Love‘ from Girl at the End of the World. Currently working on their next album, the band also gave ‘Backwards Glances’ its live debut, despite having only been working on it for a couple of days. It was followed by a sublime, slightly faster version of ‘Of Monsters & Heroes & Men’, a song that felt perfectly suited to such beautiful surroundings. ‘Five-O‘ carried a similar atmosphere, beginning with Jim Glennie and Saul Davies alone on bass and violin before the rest of the band gradually joined them, with Tim’s vocals bringing the song fully to life.

James are a band built on collaboration, and that was clear throughout the set, particularly during ‘Attention’, their favourite song to play from Girl at the End of the World. Beginning with a simple piano line, the track builds steadily before keyboardist Mark Hunter drives a euphoric instrumental passage that takes it to another level. ‘Sometimes’ provided another of the night’s standout moments. As the band dropped out at the end of the song, the crowd carried the chorus on alone, their voices ringing around the site before the band kicked back in.

The encore brought ‘Getting Away With It’, ‘Come Home‘, ‘Nothing But Love’ and ‘Laid’. Ending on ‘Laid‘ was the right choice for a festival crowd, but ‘Nothing But Love‘ remains one of James’ most uplifting closers. As the song played, a sea of joined hands stretched across the crowd – a remarkable sight for a band more than three decades into their career, especially with a song that is still relatively new. Then again, James have always had a knack for making new songs feel like old favourites.