James kicked off their first Australian tour since 2018 in Perth, returning Down Under with their much-loved 1993 album Laid taking centre stage. Following the success of last year’s North American tour, the band are once again performing the album in its entirety each night, weaving its twelve tracks into a changing setlist alongside songs from across their extensive catalogue. Unfortunately, it seems the band brought the British weather with them, with heavy rain providing a rather soggy backdrop to the opening night. Despite the conditions, the crowd were clearly up for it, refusing to let the downpour dampen their enthusiasm.
Around 60 fans gathered for the VIP soundcheck, huddling together in the rain as the band treated them to four songs. The original intention had been to play something a little more uplifting, but with several Laid tracks still needing rehearsal, the session took on a distinctly atmospheric feel. Opening with ‘Stay’ from Yummy, which sadly didn’t make the main set, the band went on to perform ‘One of the Three’, ‘Everybody Knows’ and ‘Dream Thrum’. While perhaps not the most obvious choices to lift the spirits of a rain-soaked audience, getting four songs rather than the usual three was a welcome bonus.
The main show proved a much livelier affair, with the crowd responding enthusiastically despite being thoroughly drenched. Tim was clearly undeterred by the conditions, making his way into the audience during ‘Say Something’ and ‘Born of Frustration’. With no video screens at the venue, those further back lost sight of him as he disappeared among the crowd. It’s become such a familiar part of a James performance, yet there’s still something wonderfully unpredictable about watching him abandon the stage and immerse himself in the audience.
With Laid being performed in full, the set naturally featured several songs that rarely appeared in the band’s live repertoire before last year’s North American dates. Rather than playing the album in its original running order, the band have continued to mix things up, allowing its quieter, more introspective moments to sit alongside the bigger anthems. It’s an approach that worked particularly well across America, giving songs that had been overlooked for years a chance to find a new audience.
There was a slight change to the expected running order towards the end of the evening, with ‘Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)’ dropped from the main set. Instead, the band brought proceedings to a close with ‘Sometimes’, a particularly fitting choice given the relentless rain. Few songs capture the communal spirit of a James concert quite like it, and with the audience already soaked to the skin, its rain-soaked imagery couldn’t have been more appropriate.
The band returned for a three-song encore, opening with ‘Nantucket’ before delivering ‘Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)’. The latter has become one of the band’s most reliable crowd-pleasers, its infectious energy making it a natural choice for the closing stages of a show. That left ‘Laid’ to bring the evening to its conclusion, the album’s title track providing one final burst of energy for an audience that had already endured more than its fair share of rain.
It may not have been the dry, warm welcome the band had hoped for, but Perth certainly gave them an enthusiastic start to their Australian adventure. With the Laid songs now firmly established in the live repertoire following last year’s North American tour, it’ll be interesting to see how the setlists evolve over the remaining four dates.
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