Gig review: James at York Barbican

The house lights are still up after the interval during James’ show at the York Barbican as frontman Tim Booth wanders back on stage. Behind him, an orchestra sits patiently, strings tensed, waiting for their cue. When conductor Joe Duddell fails to appear, the singer picks up the baton and promptly drops it in pantomime style as they abruptly respond with a jarring note.

It is a snatch of old-fashioned music hall theatricality befitting this event’s marquee feel. the band are one of the great survivors of northern eighties indie, at the very least one of the few still capable of filling venues much larger than this. The decision to step down from arenas is a calculated call though; as they reach 40 years in the business, they are celebrating their longevity with a tour, dubbed James Lasted, where they have brought along two-dozen extra faces to give their catalogue a symphonic polish.

Long since expanded to a beefy, brassy nine-piece, James’ live prowess has always been rooted in observational songcraft as much as a die-hard fan appreciation for sidestepping nostalgia: this, after all, is a band who once opened Glastonbury and refused to play any top-ten hits. Nor is this the first time they have been joined by orchestral accompaniment, with Duddell a veteran holdover from a 2011 jaunt with similar reinterpretation.

But over a gig split into two acts, the focus on the minutiae of their musicality over the beat of their bangers delivers a symphonic ebb-and-flow, ebbs and flows like some kind of post-Madchester operetta. For casual listeners chasing a shot of adrenaline, Booth’s extravagantly glorious trousers is as baggy as it gets; for everyone else, it is a melodically mellifluous evening of expanded horizons.

The biggest hits are those reworked the most – She’s a Star, Laid and Sit Down are all dramatically recast into elegantly baroque renditions – while others are merely accentuated by the addition of hymnal strings – Alaskan Pipeline, from 2001’s Pleased to Meet You is a seldom-played spine-tingler.

It does mean they seldom stray away from mid-to-slow tempo throughout, and a few deeper cuts during the second half fall towards soporific territory.

Festival instincts are hard to trample though; Sometimes arrives with a burst of wild euphoria, before an unplanned Top of the World diverges from the setlist to play them out.

Four decades in, there’s plenty of new light through old windows here.