| It is a cliché, though when they've spent near on two decades
skirting around them, or wriggling clean from their restraints with glittery snake-hips
at any rate, it's an allowance you'd expect as they make their final stand. But
there really isn't a single dry eye in this house tonight. For a man who's made
a career from dancing across imaginary minefields, Tim Booth - for it is he that's
leaving and he on whom our eyes are undoubtedly focused, as far as they can be
- looks like he's actually found himself in an emotional no man's land for probably
the first time (with the exception of home turf like Manchester and Preston). With legions of elated unsuppressed fanatics before him
and generations of band line-up around him, having just finished a burgeoning
run through arguably and aptly the best version of commercial signature tune 'Sit
Down' they've ever committed to a stage (slight tinkering audience-supported verse,
pounding live chorus, stimulating climax - undoubtedly still a cracking song)
he looks almost lost, drifting gracefully through every one of those final gig
clichés.
 Of
course, it would have been easy for this final curtain call to melt amongst the
mutterings of non-existent album sales, lost record deals, below capacity gigs
and as a sum of all that, or maybe on top of it, the feeling that James' peak,
relevance and even reverence, was now nothing more than a fading speck confined
to their background. But if this has to be a wake then everyone'll be draped uniformly
in trademark flower t-shirts, sat in regulation cross-legged salute, beaming with
thoughts hooked only to the highest times. As accomplished as the last album 'Pleased
To Meet You' was then, a consistent vintage return to form after the bitty 'Millionaires',
for the occasion (save for a sturdy 'English Beefcake' and so so 'Getting Away
With It') they choose wisely to ignore it. A memorable two-hour, 20 song best-of
set, only made all the more worthy by the fact that they still miss half your
favourites (no 'Say Something', no 'Fred Astaire', no 'How Was It For You'!?),
assures you can leave with only the right dynamite and decidedly off-kilter lasting
impression that they surely deserve.
Because although these tunes may
not stand comparatively alongside many of today's scene-led trends, not only do
they as a band seem like the last of a kind (I mean, who else is there that embodies
their huge, sprawling, group-embodied, visibly heart-felt ambitions? Gomez maybe?),
but the songs breath with individuality, more often than not beating a path to
your raptured attention. 'Sometimes' remains the most beautiful storm, 'Sound'
ruptures inspiringly from delicate to distinct and damning and 'Come Home' reminds
of a time when they did skim closer to a scene, rumbling with colourful baggy
delight. Harking back to an era when they were still eccentric electric folkies
with Manchester blood running through their veins, the furious impassioned preaching
of 'God Only Knows', the virtuoso build of powerfully stark 'Johnny Yen' and the
stripped down acoustic 'Protect Me' see a couple more bald associates adding to
the occasion.
Ex-guitarist Larry Gott (Tim: "When you leave James you
lose your hair" ) and legendary producer and Mr Roxy Music, Brian Eno (dances
like your dad), strike a chord with the audience, Larry especially, and at least
give it more of a party feel. But tonight is all about Tim Booth. The way he howls
vocal aerobics across the likes of 'She's A Star', 'Hymn From A Village' and a
divine 'Top Of The World' (performed from the back of the arena) with such wild
gentlemanly precision. The way he voluntarily convulses, maybe with a little less
gusto these days (doctor's orders), but still unable to shake off the impression
of a puppet Sinatra on speed at an acid house rave in a wind-tunnel in Manchester. The way his poetry and verse conducts and concludes all that vies for
position around him. A six minute standing ovation and a continued serenade
from the audience in the form of 'Sit Down' brings it all to a close. It may be
a cliché for the rest of the band not to carry on now, but amid rumours that they
will you can't help but feel that without Tim, a true artist in the eternal sense,
good memories could only go stale.
James Berry for Crud Magazine© 2001
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