Midway through a nearly two-hour set, James singer Tim Booth reveals that the narrow gangway he has been prowling and prancing along was originally supposed to be situated much further into the crowd. Apparently, health and safety intervened. “They were worried you might devour me,” he declares. “But sometimes I don’t mind being devoured.”
With eight band members on stage and a back catalogue of 15 albums – including this year’s strident Living in Extraordinary Times – there is currently more James to feast on than ever, and in this case bigger is demonstrably better. The canny decision to team up with fellow indie veterans the Charlatans for a brief UK tour of jumbo-sized venues nudges the night into mini-festival territory, for a seasoned congregation equal parts rowdy and rapt.
It is Booth’s swooping, decadent voice that helps sell the abundance of new tracks. Anything he does is inherently dramatic, so it is little wonder the 58-year-old is a sometime actor. With his shaven head and live-wire charisma, Booth could play anything from intense yoga instructor to terrifying Russian heavy. The audience certainly want a piece of his action: after an early runout for their shuffling 1997 hit Waltzing Along, he is pulled into the throng.
Rather than try and calm things down, they then play Sit Down, a hit in 1991 and perhaps the first James song to confirm their gift for combining grand rock gestures with emotional communion. It creates a tangible charge that echoes throughout the rest of the set. They reach even deeper into their back catalogue to pull out Stutter, a reminder of the arty, angular James of the 1980s. It is a strident mirror-dimension version of These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ that builds toward drunk-tank guitar squall.
That the material from Living in Extraordinary Times holds its own alongside such past glories is never less than impressive. They encore with new song Many Faces, a humanistic rallying cry that sparks a mass singalong with the speed of a miracle language-learning tape, before a climactic, triumphant Sometimes. Despite such a torrid, florid banquet, the crowd are left wanting more.
• At Wembley Arena, London, on 7 December. Then touring until 9 December.
