James made the Civic the perfect setting for a night of reflective songs and shared singalongs. With Laid woven through the set, Tim Booth’s expressive voice and the band’s musical chemistry brought warmth and depth, while the bold Nantucket had the crowd on its feet. A memorable, world-class night.
Koen Alder won the room before he’d even played a note. Spotting the Civic’s balcony, he admitted he’d never played a venue with one and asked everyone up there for a wave and a cheer. They obliged, and the connection was made.
A member of Marmalade, Koen began his solo project earlier this year. Between songs, he shared the experiences behind his thoughtful, soulful writing: Slow Morning, The Coast, London Morning and Lighthouse all arrived with a story attached. An intimate take on Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World drew the audience in even further. Then came the Tui story: a bird that sang near his studio, whose call Koen learned to imitate so convincingly he once fooled a friend on Tiritiri Matangi. Before long, the crowd was joining in with bird song too.
Engaging, confident and seriously talented, Koen made his short set feel personal rather than introductory. He left us with the sense that we’d heard not just his songs, but a little of the life behind them.
James
I’ll admit I wondered whether the Civic was an unusual choice for James. After the standing-room energy of Razorlight at the Powerstation two weeks earlier, a seated theatre seemed a different proposition. Then Tim Booth explained that Laid – James’s fifth album, released in 1993 – is a more mellow, stripped-back work, and that sitting down can help you listen in a different way. He invited us to stand when we wanted and sit for the quieter songs, leaving the crowd to find its own balance. The Civic, with its history and intimacy, turned out to be exactly right.
The audience brought its own history, too. Some wore old James shirts with pride; others queued for the last tour merchandise. For many, Laid had soundtracked a misspent youth, and the songs brought back memories of who we were and where we hoped to be in the mid-nineties.
This was the final stop of the Australian and New Zealand tour, and Booth joked that eight days of travel and chasing jet lag had made remembering lyrics harder. He was confident we’d help him out. We were more than happy to.
Booth’s voice carried the evening: warm, expressive and full of feeling. Chloë Alper added a celestial warmth to the vocal blend, lifting the songs without crowding them. Jim Glennie’s guitar, Saul Davies’s violin and percussion, and Andy Diagram’s trumpet gave the arrangements a vivid, shifting character. During Sound, Diagram made the theatre part of the performance, taking his trumpet into a box to reach the circle before serenading the stalls.
David Baynton-Power and Debbie Knox-Hewson brought a lively rhythmic foundation across drums, bongos and percussion. Their double-drum moment at the end of Beautiful Beaches was a particular high point: tight, powerful and utterly satisfying.
The set moved between Laid and songs from across James’s career, with newer work making clear that this is no band content to live on its past. The encore’s Nantucket was the boldest statement of all. Booth acknowledged that not every long-time fan might welcome an eight-and-a-half-minute work in progress, but by the end, the audience was on its feet and dancing. It felt less like a risk than a reminder that James are still moving forward.
There was a wonderfully human wobble before Sometimes: three attempts to get the song in tune, followed by Booth losing the lyrics. It only made the room feel closer. When Laid finally closed the night, the crowd had its moment to sing the song it had been waiting for.
This was a gig for the fans, but not a nostalgia act. James delivered Laid as it deserves to be heard—in an intimate room, with space for its quieter passages and the musicianship to bring its songs fully to life. A remarkable album, a band still in motion, and a world-class night at the Civic.
Kerrie Evans
Photography by Leonie Moreland
James
Koen Alder
Set List
Zero
Way Over Your Head
Dream Thrum
Everybody Knows
Five-O
Ring the Bells
What’s the World
One of the Three
Knuckle Too Far
Shadow of a Giant
Low Low Low
Sound
Getting Away with It (All Messed Up)
Skindiving
Lullaby
P.S.
Say Something
Beautiful Beaches
Tomorrow
Encore:
Out to Get You
Nantucket
Sometimes
Laid
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