! .'O WO ATMICHIGAN
Ewan McGregor, star of 'Trainspotting'
and 'Brassed Off,' co-stars with Vivian
Wu in 'The Pillow Book' at the Michigan
Theater through July 30.
I Ts
Wednesday
July 23, 1997 7
James rocks indifferent crowd at Lollapalooza show
By Aaron Rennie
Daily Arts Editor
At last Tuesday's Lollapalooza stop
a Pine Knob in Clarkston, the
achester, England, sextet James
played an impressive 10-song, 45-
minute set of compelling rock 'n' roll.
Unfortunately, very few people wit-
nessed James' performance or applaud-
ed the group's efforts, in all likelihood
due to an overwhelming number of fans
going to the show to see hard rockers
Korn and Tool, both of whom followed
James on the bill.
Despite the less-than-ideal back-
und for its
forma n c e,
James neverthe-
less played with
much enthusi-
asm, determined
to win over the Lollapaloo
chees e - fried
minds of the
Korn fans who heckled them. James
commenced its set with "Five-0," an
ate song off of James' landmark
l 3 album, "Laid." Sporting a shiny,
metallic disco-ball shirt, black cowboy
hat and sunglasses, lead singer Tim
Booth joked, "Hi, we're James. We're
from Las Vegas." When the song ended,
a stagehand assisted Booth with fixing
a microphone box attached to his back.
Booth then muttered, "He gets to fiddle
with me for free" before violinist/gui-
tarist Saul Davies deadpanned, "The
rest of us have to pay."
#fter a sweet version of "Waltzing
Along," the next single from James'
new album, "Whiplash," the group
played its biggest U.S. hit to date, the
title track off "Laid." The rather silent
crowd - with the exception of a hand-
ful of diehards wearing James' flowery
T-shirts - finally came to life during
"Laid," trying unsuccessfully to match
Booth's inimitable falsetto.
ooth surprised just about everyone
ng "Say Something," yet another hit
off "Laid," when he left the stage,
walked slowly through the pavilion
seats and onto the grass, all the while
singing perfectly in tune. Numerous
teenyboppers in the crowd suddenly
affected adoration for the band, trying
desperately to touch Booth. He then
made his way back down the pavilion
and back onto the stage for the rest of
the set.
ames followed by moving away
its more pop-influenced songs to a
couple of more adventurous - and less
well-received - ones, the little-known
"Jam J" and "Honest Joe," both of
which can be found on the group's free-
form 1994 release, "Wah Wah." Both
had traces of techno in them, and were
solidly executed. Perhaps sensing,
though, that the crowd's attention had
diverted somewhat, James returned to
trademark three-minute gems.
'Lost A Friend," from "Whiplash,"
was quite winning, but the fans were
more appreciative of James' next song,
"Sit Down," a huge international hit in
)[
1991 that inexplicably didn't get played
much at all stateside. Booth explained
to the crowd, "This is English rock, a
different species, but from the same
tribe," which brilliantly summed up the
less-than-harmonious cultural divide
between the band and the Lollapalooza
audience. Nevertheless, the group
earned respectable applause by many
meatheads on the lawn who found the
song catchy.
The penultimate song, "Tomorrow,"
the intro track to "Whiplash" (and ini-
tially found in a more skeletal and raw
format on "Wah Wah"), was simply
stunning. James
ended its set with the
VIE W keyboard-heavy
"Come Home," an
James older song found on
the band's 1990
za, Pine Knob album, "Gold
Jly 15, 1997 Mother." When the
group left the stage,
many people were clapping, but sadly,
an even greater number of unenlight-
ened audience members were cheering
that James had left and that Korn was
about to come on.
In an interview with The Michigan
Daily after their set, Booth, Davies and
bassist Jim Glennie were partially sad-
dened that the majority of the people in
the crowd were ignoring them. "We're
the only tuneful band out there," Booth
said. Still, in addition to spending a
great deal of time hanging out with fel-
low Brits Orbital, who were headlining
the first part of the tour, the group does
feel thankful that itsis playing to a larg-
er audience than if it just played to its
fans in clubs.
Furthermore, the band is lucky to be
playing at all, given what happened to
Booth earlier in the year. Following the
second date of James' U.S. tour, Booth
felt tremendous pain in his neck. He
was diagnosed with a lateral disc pro-
trusion in his neck and right shoulder,
which produced pressure on his nerve
root. He remained "on (his) back for
three weeks" in San Francisco, and the
band had to cancel the rest of its tour,
including a May date at Clutch Cargo's
in Pontiac.
Once Booth was in suitable condition
to tour, James promptly decided to sign
on to do Lollapalooza, a move that, it
was hoped, would help the band crack
America. Unfortunately, James has had
to miss a prime slot at last month's ven-
erable Glastonbury Festival in England.
"It was hard (missing Glastonbury),"
said Booth, "but there was a terrible
deluge and they almost had to cancel it,
so we weren't so upset" But by doing
Lollapalooza, the band is essentially
nixing the chance that it will honor its
club dates in the near future. "No, this
is it," laments Booth.
James fans shouldn't fret, though, for
the group is going back into the studio
in the fall (after playing at the United
Kingdom's Reading Festival in late
August). Glennie said the album should
be ready "by the early part of next year"
and that the band wants to "keep
movin' to make up for lost time this
year.
It is imperative that James rebuilds
its momentum, for the group has
encountered numerous stumbling
blocks in addition to Booth's severe
injury. First, founding James member
and slide guitarist Larry Gott told the
remaining band members that he was
leaving the group prior to the making of
"Whiplash." Gott "had to choose
between staying with his wife or us and
chose her," Glennie said.
The same "black" day that James was
informed of Gott's decision, the band
found out it owed hundreds of thousands
of pounds in back taxes. In addition,
Booth had decided that he needed to go
off on his own for a little while, which
resulted in his collaboration with "Twin
Peaks" composer Angelo Badalamenti,
"Booth and the Bad Angel"
Nevertheless, James got back togeth-
er and recorded the excellent
"Whiplash," which you wouldn't know
about if you listened to radio or
watched MTV. Neither "Tomorrow"
nor the album's first single, "She's A
Star," has received much airtime or
video spins. As such, it seems quite
apparent why the band is itching to get
back in the studio and come up with an
even better album.
And despite the fact that "She's A
Star" is quite possibly the most catchy
song on "Whiplash," James didn't play
it at Pine Knob. When asked why the
song wasn't performed, given that one
would think the band would try to pro-
mote its latest album as much as possi-
ble, Booth said, "We're trying out dif-
ferent setlists (at every show), and this
is what we played today."
Booth did note a change, however, in
James' approach to determining what to
play before each concert. "We used to
always change (the setlist), but now we
try to get more stable for our sound
guys and ourselves." Part of this new-
found stability can be witnessed in
Booth's ritual of leaving the stage (he
no 'longer needs a neck brace or a
wheelchair) and wandering into the
audience on the "grassy knoll." "We've
done it about twice before (and we plan
to keep the tradition)," Booth said. "It
breaks the ice."
The bandmembers had plenty of
interesting insight into some of their
British musical contemporaries. When
asked if fellow Mancunians the Stone
Roses could've been as big as Oasis in
America if the band put more effort into
touring - the Roses had sold-out gigs
at Madison Square Garden in New York
City and another in L.A. before pulling
out at the last minute and never fulfill-
ing them- Booth said, "No. Ian Brown
(lead singer of the now-disbanded Stone
Roses) can't sing in tune and Liam
(Gallagher of Oasis) can. You can't tour
the States with an F-you attitude."
Davies also has a critical opinion of a
current U.K. music giant, Radiohead.
Despite the fact that Oxford's
James' singer Tim Booth resembles Bono (above) and prances the
stage in a disco ball shirt (below).
Radiohead has garnered critical adula-
tion for its third record, "OK
Computer," Davies feels it is "self-
indulgent shite."
Booth, on the other hand, was
impressed with the success of the
Prodigy, a techno band whose new
album, "The Fat of the Land," debuted
at No. I in the U.S. two weeks ago. "By
number of first-week sales, Prodigy is
bigger than Oasis and will (eventually)
be bigger than the Spice Girls;' Booth
said.
As for James, perhaps it is not realis-
tic that the group will sell as many
albums as the aforementioned artists, but
its members have a positive attitude and
are putting lots of effort into expanding
the band's popularity in the States. Don't
count them out, for a year or two down,
the line, James may well be headlining
shows at venues like Pine Knob.
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