James - Blackpool Empress Ballroom 23/04/08

James played at Blackpool a week last Tuesday, returning to the scene of their previous legendary performances at the Empress Ballroom in 1990 and 2000, but promoting their first full album since the reformation of the classic "Seven-era" line up, 'Hey Ma".

Naturally Celia & I weren't going to miss out on them appearing on our doorstep. We last saw James back in 2001 at their (at the time) farewell performance in Manchester (captured on the "Getting Away With It Live" DVD). Nothing really was going to top that, not even seeing Tim Booth up close and personal at the Royal College of Music gig in 2004. Now I'd seen James a few times in the past before I met Celia, two of these gigs also being in Blackpool so for me there was going to be a lot to live up to.

Was it a big mistake for them to try and recapture past glories? Would the original line up be able to still pull it off? And more so, was the new material any good? Two minutes into the gig and any such worries were allayed. James were back. Opening with the popular track "Upside"from the new album, followed by the wonderful old fave "Born Of Frustration", the band showed why they were missed so much. They ploughed through a setlist comprising of plenty of tracks from the new album interspersed with old faves.

Now having played the album a couple of times before attending to the gig, it sounded okay but nothing special. On stage though the songs came alive and sounded like old friends. The slightly reworked old stuff came alive and sounded really fresh, 'Sound" and "Sometimes" becoming almost like football terrace singalongs, and "Come Home", "Waltzing Along" and "Tomorrow" provoking a frenzied response from the crowd.

So there you have it - they're back, rejuvinated with some great new material, sounding as good as ever. Whether they can reassert themselves in the music business is another story, but with sell out tours and an adoring audience, for now they're flying.

The set list:

Upside,

Born Of Frustration,

Waltzing Along,

Oh My Heart,

Boom Boom,

Ring The Bells,

Hey Ma,

Bubbles,

Come Home,

Of Monsters And Heroes And Men,

I Wanna Go Home,

Out To Get You,

Waterfall,

She's A Star,

Sound,

Tomorrow

followed by an encore:

Say Something,

Whiteboy

and Sometimes

Great Animal Pictures Of Our Time: No. 256

The Great Rock & Roll Swindle

Back in the mists of time (alright, 1993) yours truly saw what is to this day one of the best gigs I've ever attended. My future wife also unbeknown to me was there but that's another story for another time. Anyway, U2's Zooropa Outside Broadcast leg of their mammoth Zoo TV tour finally reached Britain and I had a ticket for the gig at Leeds Roundhay Park. The price of the ticket was a then whopping £22.00, which bearing in mind the average ticket price was around £12.00, was quite a price to pay. But worth every penny.

We spin on four years. A trek out to Roundhay Park again to see U2's follow up multimedia spectacular. Despite their album not really setting the world alight at the time, the tour was a success and the tickets sold very well indeed, and were priced at £28.50. Six quid increase in four years... fair enough. Another fabulous gig.

Forward to August 2001. U2 are now again the biggest band in the world. They'd reined in their experimental ways and with the "All You Can Leave Behind" had gone back to the traditional "classic" U2 sound and sold shedloads as a result. The tour wasn't visually spectacular as before, instead they concentrated on the "performance" with only the minimal of video screen trickery. This time there were no outdoor dates, only Arenas. The tour sold out almost immediately, being their first to really take advantage of Internet sales. But hey. Check the price. £40.00. And that was for the second tier of the Arena. Not a great view.

And then we get to 2005...

Outdoors, more elaborate staging than the last tour, extra £20 on top of the previous price. What's going on then? In just 12 years the ticket price has more than doubled.

This isn't isolated to U2 - across the board over the last 5 years ticket prices have risen alarmingly. Back in 2002 I saw Kylie at the MEN Arena, cost around £25.00. If I wanted to see her now at the same venue, i'm looking at £50. That's before booking fees (I'll get to that later). Even the right-on Radiohead are guilty of similar crimes.

A ticket to see them in Blackpool at their commercial peak on the "OK Computer" tour of 1997 cost £12.50. The price of a CD. Their 2000 series of Big Top dates doubled in price, but we let them off as they appeared to be taking a stance by not having any corporate advertising and subsidising it themselves. However two years ago, at Blackpool again, the ticket cost £32.50. Less than ten years and nearly three times the price. Their current tour is priced at £42.50. I'm not attending.

Festivals are as bad. Not only have they doubled in price over about 5 or 6 years but they now sell out within 2 hours... and this is before the full line-ups are known. It's maaaaaddd.

Let's face it, we know what's going on. CD sales have been dying on their arse ever since the internet was invented. Bands now can make more money from a successful tour than their latest album. Much like tickets for sports events are seen as premium product, artists have begun to see since the turn of the century that they can charge more for tickets, without seeing any appreciable downturn in demand. Funny really - Madonna can do two nights at Earl's Court and earn as much as she would have done doing a week there say 5 years ago. The likes of The Police can charge £60 upwards for tickets and they still sell out. Ticket sales and merchandise are where the moolah is.

That's if you can get hold of a ticket... as they're now a desirable lifestyle statement - "I've got a ticket for The White Stripes... look at me... what a twat I am" - there's now the horrible task of having to buy a ticket on the day they're released... or else you don't go. Once upon a time you'd send off a cheque to a PO Box and get the ticket back in a few weeks. Back in my day (old fart that I am) you'd go to the box office or ring them up and book over the phone, and very rarely would you be disappointed. Nowadays you sit huddled round a computer at 9am on a Friday morning, looged in to Ticketmaster or suchlike pressing refresh for half an hour until you manage to get a ticket usually at the back of the Arena. Oh and then paying a fiver upwards PER TICKET for "booking fees" & "admin", i.e. putting a ticket in an envelope, sticking a stamp on and shoving it in the post. Bastards.

I had so much bother booking a couple of tickets for Steve Coogan at Blackpool via Ticketmaster that I said sod this for a lark and went down in the car to the box office where I purchased a couple of front row seats with an admin charge of a quid. Oh happy day.

So what's the answer? Go to less gigs I guess. We voted with our feet a couple of years ago and refused to pay £32.50 a ticket for Blondie, played it cool and waited until the last minute before the gig started and got a pair from a tout for £20 all in. Alternatively there's e-Bay - Pet Shop Boys tickets at £35 each? Naaahh, we'll have a couple at £30 for the pair thanks. "The Man" has managed to price me out of seeing my beloved United at Old Trafford, and now is putting the kybosh on regular gig going. Having said all that, I'll probably still go to see U2 again though...

Men's Mag vs Lad Mag: Round 2

Previously I went off on a massive rant in a blog posting about the declining quality of magazines for men. Well, less than 12 months on, maybe it's an end of an era. Top shelf perv-merchant extrordinaire Paul Raymond has shuffled off, and in the middle shelf men's mag world the tide's turned, and I can sit here looking somewhat smug, as the industry has had similar thoughts to mine. The old editors have been given the heave-ho and a new attitude has taken over... or is it an old attitude? The top magazines MAXIM & FHM have now radically cleaned up their image, and you'll rarely find a nipple on show (unless they're doing an article on Jamie Oliver). They've actually got semi-readable articles, the babes (and there are fewer than before) are tastefully shot now, and it's like the old days of the mid-nineties again.

Blimey, MAXIM's even got a Gillian Anderson photoshoot in it this month. Have I gone through some sort of "Ashes to Ashes"-esque step back to 1996? Please don't make me have to listen to Shed Seven again.

So FHM & MAXIM join the likes of GQ, ARENA, and ESQUIRE as the respectable face of men's mags, ARENA have even gone as far as having blokes back on the cover (Joe Calzaghe anyone?).
It's only a small victory though. We've still got LOADED, FRONT and their junior offspring NUTS & ZOO down in the gutter, with the same amount of boobs, gore and crap jokes as ever, selling in copious amounts.

Ah well. Never mind. We're making inroads.

Nice knockers though... PHWOOOAARRRRRRRRR, LOOK AT THOSE (Sniiiip - That's enough - Ed).