James at the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver - 7th October

A friend and I went to see James last week. Tracey was ill and couldn't go. The Commodore Ballroom is an old venue with a stage, a dance floor in front and raised seating areas with table to the side. It's tiny with a capacity of just 900. When we arrived the place was pretty empty with a few people up at the stage and lots of people eating their dinner. Never seen that before.

The support act, Ed Hardcourt (not spelled right) came on. I have a copy of an album that Mr Black had given me years ago and I was looking forward to it, but sadly he was very ordinary. I don't think the size of the audience helped but he could have made more of an effort. He evetually stormed off, apparently sulking, without saying goodnight.

When James eventually came on the crown had grown substantially but the place was only 2/3 full. They played a set of new songs from their recent mini-albums and 20 year old songs that they played live when I first saw them at University. I enjoyed it but I think a lot of the Canadian audience were a bit lost. The encore of 3 songs were more recent hits.

They were incredibly tight and gave a great performance despite the smaller crowd. In fact Tim suggested that they would return to Vancouver within a year if everyone promised to bring 1 or 2 friends next time.

Here's hoping.