UK band James deliver a strong show - despite some technical elements flailing
James' frontman Tim Booth is indignant the group won't be back for a third visit.
The last time the UK band was in New Zealand, US President Donald Trump had just been elected in 2016, and this time Tim's home is being menaced by wildfires currently ravaging and destroying California.
Dressed in a light white shirt, and with brown cotton style-flares hanging off his frame, he jokes with the almost entirely middle-aged audience at a sold out Auckland Powerstation on a Sunday night, that a third visit from his troop, who've been together since the 1980s, could trigger the apocalypse.
But frankly, given the roof comes down when the band plays their mega hit Sit Down at the end of the show, 100 per cent of the audience wouldn't care if hell and his horsemen dropped by if it meant James would return to these shores.
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In truth, there are times when the bald-headed almost shaman-like Booth's honeyed tones are lost in the mix tonight - equally Andy Diagram's rousing trumpet; moments when the band's growing musical components come together and drown their charismatic leader out - and it's a shame as they negotiate new songs like Hank and Living in Extraordinary Times.
But then there are other times such as when the room positively erupts when old faves from their extensive back catalogue such as She's A Star, a slowed-down-but-still-dirty How Was It For You and Come Home are rolled out, or magical moments such as the show starting with Lose Control with Booth moving freely and initially anonymously through the crowd with Diagram's trumpet playing from a balcony when it doesn't matter; moments which remind you why this long-surviving British indie folk band who discovered stadium alt-rock in the 90s after their mid-80s inception is still going and still so beloved with an ex-pat audience.
It's a common theme of the night, with Booth snaking and shaking his way through the crowd during Born of Frustration, dancing with random members, pushing camera phones out of his face and embracing another when the euphoria is positively present, and definitely hard to deny - even if the technical elements and mix appear to occasionally conspire against them.
In truth, the older songs are what the audience wants, and while the band's still prolific, newer songs seethe with indignation and preoccupations with the US; but then Many Faces is played, which almost stops Booth in his tracks and threatens to overcome him, as the audience sing back the song's refrain: "There's only one, Human race, Many faces, Everybody belongs here." It's a reminder of the meditative touches the band's brought to music and how they've unified so many.
It all ends with their much-loved Sometimes, with its opening lines of "There's a storm outside" and talk of "The rain floods gutters, And makes a great sound on concrete"; the audience hit their collective hysteria as the show ends.
But in a touch that could be a sign that Booth's prophecy the world is ending with their presence, the streets outside are drenched with rain, as it comes hurtling down, indeed, flooding gutters.
Maybe Booth's right - their visits bring apocalypses or seismic changes; but watching the sea of faces ducking for cover in Auckland's shopfronts which litter the road out from the Powerstation afterwards, they don't care.
And to be frank, with shoes drenched, and wet denim clinging to my legs as I trudge back to my car with a broad grin on my face, neither do I.
James play The Foundry at UCSA in Christchurch tonight, before heading to Australia.
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