Getting Away With It: Live

Honestly incorporating the odd technical glitch (a bit of feedback from the dobro--that old sound-engineering chestnut) and profane slip of the tongue (Booth apologises to his Mum in the audience for a four-letter outburst) there's no questioning the grandiose melodic momentum ("Laid", "Sometimes" "Sit Down" etc) evident in the hit-laden setlist. Yes, despite accusations of conceited arena-rock posturing and winsome folk-thrumming (not to mention Tim Booth's castigation as nothing more than a puffed-up hippy messiah for the post-Morrissey generation) James remained obdurately in love with the charts, if never becoming a big enough part of the national cultural consciousness to be namedropped by tabloid gossip columns or ribbed on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. In other words, they wrote some fine songs. Many of them are here. One suspects we haven't heard the last of them (or him) yet. --Kevin Maidment