Live music galleries: James [2008]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Artist: James
When: September 22nd, 2008
Where: Club Soda, Montreal
Context: I recently finished wrapping up the series on my favourite albums of 2008 and in talking about how James’s 10th album “Hey ma” was my number one, I also referenced their show that I caught in Montreal that year and how it was my favourite (as well as my wife’s favourite) ever live show. Much like the gallery I posted recently from the Virgin festival that took place earlier that same month, the pictures here are not quality because they were taken with my old camera but I do have pictures and this is mainly due to Victoria’s forethought. It was the first and last time we ever drove to Montreal and back the same night for a concert and never plan to do it again because it was exhausting. However, neither of us regret seeing the show. We saw one of our favourite bands that normally plays gigantic shows at an intimate venue and were able to sing along with all of our favourite tunes. In fact, the whole club loudly sang along, blowing the band away, especially during “Sometimes” when the crowd lengthened the song to well over seven minutes by repeating the chorus refrain over and over again. Such an exhilarating and magical night.
Point of reference song: “Sometimes“*

*The link I’ve shared is to the music video but someone who was also there has shared video footage from James’s performance of this song on YouTube from the show. You can find that here.