CityLife

James

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

October 31, 2011

THE burly face of modern concert security is not exactly the sort of welcome visitors to the charming Bridgewater Hall are used to. And even though it’s Halloween, the guards aren’t searching bags for trick or treat pranks.

Usually James concerts feel like a giant hug; combine this sextet of multi-instrumentalists with a full orchestra and a choir and it ought to feel as dreamy as snuggling up with a snoozing panda. But for a while, this one has an anxious aura.

A gentle reworking of Dust Motes – re-imagined for the Orchestra Of The Swan and Manchester Consort Choir by Joe Duddell, previously responsible for putting Elbow with The Halle – keeps Tim Booth’s astonishing vocals centre stage while Hello lets the choir’s harmonies and spirited violins frolic.

There’s a little hiccup with the setlist for the third night running (guitarist Saul Davies is quickest to the punchline: “He never did this with Elbow”) before the band’s inner Fleetwood Mac comes shining through on Alaskan Pipeline.

And then an explanation for the tension arrives when Tim waves around a crude, hand-written poster from his stalker – an aggressive promise to do Tim harm at one of the shows.

There’s two ways to handle this: the serious way or the light way, and Tim opts for the second picking on the stalker’s bad spelling and dedicating a song to him: Someone’s Got It In For Me. It’s a good choice, and one that restores a humorous balance.

Duddell is a James fan of old, and so it’s inevitable and exciting that he’s given the orchestral treatment to the band’s full back catalogue.

Slices of Strip Mine are laden with strings, from the playful Fairground to the brooding Medieval and ominous Riders, while early songs Hymn From A Village and Why So Close leap with fiddles and multi-part harmonies.

In truth, though, this orchestral treatment works best when it’s less of an accent and more of a new beginning. 

Adding these elements to James’s sound was always going to be a comfortable fit; they are, after all, already there in Andy Diagram’s trumpet, Mark Hunter’s piano and Saul’s violin.

Even Tim’s spoof stint as a conductor leading the orchestra through the William Tell Overture isn’t an ill fit for someone as physically animated as him.

Massive favourites Say Something, Just Like Fred Astaire and Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) sound beefier and more ethereal with 50 people playing them, but the magic really happens on The Shining, Of Monsters And Heroes And Men or Top Of The World – the latter completed by a tightrope-style walk from Tim on a balcony handrail.

On all these songs, the band, the orchestra and the choir dance in perfect harmony. And when that unity peaks with closer Sometimes, the prolonged standing ovation it receives really says it all.

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