James at First Avenue (Sep 21, 2025)

James Setlist

— Set 1 —

Dream Thrum
Say Something
Five-O
Lullaby
Way Over Your Head
Waltzing Along
Beautiful Beaches
Heads
One of the Three
P.S.
Out to Get You
— Set 2 —
Skindiving
Knuckle Too Far
Don’t Wait That Long
Curse Curse
She’s a Star
Everybody Knows
Tomorrow
Low Low Low
Born of Frustration
Sometimes (Lester Piggott)
Laid
— Encore —
Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

Tour Dates

Delighted to be returning to North America in September. Pre-sale opens on Wednesday for members of our mailing list – join before midnight tonight (BST) for access.

NBL x

21st September First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
23rd September Boulder Theatre, Boulder, CO
25th September The Commonwealth Room, Salt Lake City, UT
27th September The Bellwether, Los Angeles, CA
28th September Ohana Festival, Doheny State Beach, Dana Point, CA
30th September The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
2nd October Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR
4th October The Showbox, Seattle, WA USA
5th October Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver BC

The line outside of First Avenue was substantial well before doors as long time band James was in town for a two set show. The Manchester founded band has been together off and on since the early 1980’s, really hitting success in the UK going into the 90’s, and broke through in America with the release of 1993’s Laid, which was constantly on the college radio scene. After a five year hiatus in the early 2000’s, James has been regularly releasing albums with 2024’s Yummy being the band’s 18th studio album. The current 2025 tour is their first US headlining tour in 15 years, and the band has been playing the entirety of Laid with other songs across two sets.

With no opener, James started promptly at the top of the hour, entering to some ethereal walk on music. A huge band (I counted nine members), this was a seriously layered sound, including two drummers. Going into the songs the audience would know, Say Something had singer Tim Booth on a stage set up in the pit, and letting the crowd sing the chorus without him. He and the rest of the band looked pleased, and it was an early connection that made the evening all the more memorable. In the initial songs, there were routinely three or four vocalists, and violinist/guitarist Saul Davies was a spark plug for the band. Lullaby was as brilliant live as it is on the album, and was another early highlight. Weaving in a number from Yummy, James played Way Over Your Head, with Booth showing off both the high and low of his vocal range.

Heading back down to that extended pit stage, Booth was up on the barrier, holding onto the hand of a tall and strong audience member for the latter vocal riffs. Beautiful Beaches was about escaping the California wildfires and was a full out rocker which included an extended dual drum solo. We got an additional drum on stage and three(!) drummers on the next number as James continued to show surprising twists to the evening. We also got some of that trademark Booth dancing at an instrumental section. An amusing “any questions?”, led back to the classic album with One of the Three, played well with three vocalists, including Andy Diagram, who then finished the song on trumpet. Out to Get You was another triumph with the crowd getting to sing along and also allowing violinist Davies and bassist Jim Glennie to have an extended outro leading to a nearly ecstatic ending to set one.

After a fifteen minute break, James was back on for the second set. Starting without Booth, vocalist Chloe Alper took vocals. Booth was back on stage for Knuckle Too Far, which was easily the lowest key song of the evening, even with some jangly guitar work near the end. Perhaps the best bit of call back, Booth asked, “any answers?”, before heading out to that pit set up again.

Side note: behind the barrier, but off-stage, we had (presumably) some member of the tour absolutely going off dancing and singing along. It was a delightful moment.

Booth finally headed out into the crowd, and he really went for it, working his way nearly to the back stairs and then halfway across the back of the crowd before slowly moving back to the stage. I kind of loved this, as those fans got a special moment that rarely happens if you don’t get all the way to the front. Back on stage for Everybody Knows, the violin work was excellent and we were back to triple vocalists. Tomorrow started with Davies on acoustic guitar and was the epic song of the second half, with a fantastic instrumental and the crowd roaring along with the lyrics. Low Low Low was a stunning transformation of the album version, with crashing drums and loud trumpet. Saying he had “damaged his knee”, Booth asked for five or so audience members to join the stage and “go for it”. It ended up being closer to ten, and it was as chaotic and brilliant as you can imagine for Sometimes (Lester Piggott). Ending the only way it could, it was hilarious that they screwed up the start of their biggest hit, Laid, but the second time it took off, with Booth letting the audience sing the first verse alone before coming in and repeating it himself. A short break and the band came back for an encore. Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) let keyboardist Mark Hunter get a great solo. And with that, James finished a triumphant two and a half hour marathon with twenty three songs, leaving the stage to enormous applause.