Shooting Our Mouths Off

James returned to Spain for their second festival appearance of the year on 1 May, taking the stage at the eighth edition of the Warm Up Estrella de Levante festival in Murcia. Held annually over two days, the event features 48 artists across four stages. James joined the lineup as a late replacement for The Kooks, whose frontman Luke Pritchard was forced to withdraw after suffering a back injury.

The band opened with ‘Five-O’, a choice that had already proven striking at some of the later arena tour dates, here elevated by an extended violin introduction from Saul. It was a bold move for a Friday night festival crowd, but unmistakably James. They quickly shifted gears with two of their biggest hits, ‘Come Home’ and ‘Sit Down’, the former seeing Tim head to the barrier to dance with fans along the front row.

With heavy percussion and urgent vocals, ‘Heads’ pushed the set into more intense territory. The politically charged track has become a firm fixture in the band’s recent shows, resonating strongly in light of ongoing events in the US. In contrast, the delicate ‘Out to Get You’ and introspective ‘Way Over Your Head’ followed – complete juxtapositions, but that’s the joy of James. They’ve never confined themselves to a single genre or tempo; their strength has always been in their willingness to experiment.

After being performed at every arena show bar one – and earning a strong reaction each time – the lengthy, layered new track ‘Nantucket’ has secured its place in the setlist, making its European and festival debut here. James are never short of crowd-pleasers to lift the energy after introducing new material, though ‘Nantucket’ has already been welcomed like an old favourite. They followed it with ‘Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)’ and ‘Sometimes’, before closing the main set with ‘Sound’.

With just a 70-minute set, the band were up against the clock and chose not to break for an encore. Instead, they rolled straight into the euphoric ‘Tomorrow’, which was completely take over by the crowd, before bringing things to a close with ‘Laid’.