Music > Live Reviews

Jamie T at UEA

05/11/14

Jamie T is back. He’s shed the lovable lets-have-a-white-lightning-in-the-park-and-kick-over-a-traffic-cone undertone of his earlier albums, and has returned with the mellow musings of a 28 year old in Carry on the Grudge. The youthful feel of previous albums Panic Prevention and Kings and Queens soundtracked my teenage years, so naturally I was slightly apprehensive about seeing this new transformed Jamie perform live. (Disclaimer: by soundtracked I do not mean that I was a rebellious street poet, I mean that I put the albums on loop and learnt all the lyrics.)

I strongly considered crossing my fingers as Jamie and his band appeared on stage, hoping I could will the gig into replicating the frenzied ‘let’s go out and find some trouble!’ vitality of the Kings and Queens tour five years ago, rather than a more serene Ben Howard vibe. Whilst I stood nervously, the audience welcomed new song Limits Lie with open arms, its succinct, two-note chorus proving perfect for a crowd uniting sing-along. Next came Don’t You Find - the tune that broke Jamie’s 5 year silence.  Again, pleasant live performance, but it left me feeling that my 5 years of pent up anticipation would be best channelled into pensive frowning and rhythmic nodding, rather than crazy uninhibited dancing.  After a brief interaction with the crowd, Jamie’s band ripped into Operation, its opening staccato chords and manic wails startling the crowd out of its cosy mellow. Operation is an unreleased song off album no. 1, so it was incredible to see the entire dance floor of UEA’s LCR turn into a mosh pit, collectively yelling along to a bridge seemingly written for a sweaty, chanting crowd. The remainder of the night continued in this vein; Jamie mixed old songs with new, fast paced with slow, riotous with tranquil. The LCR also saw the welcome return of Jamie’s Jack-the-Laddish rapping, an element that is almost obsolete in the new album. He completed it with a hype man, animated swagger,and coaxing the audience from the very edge of the stage, proudly shouting lyrics such as ‘he’s a right big **** but I’ll knock him one.......**** that, RUN, RUN!’.

Thus, Jamie T confidently proved to the apprehensive (i.e. me) that his appeal does not merely lie in his youth.  If the number of people willing to get kicked out in order to crowd surf is a decent measure of how good a gig is, Jamie T would get a 10/10 and several odd shoes as a bonus. Unfortunately it’s not, so he’ll have to settle for a 8/10 (points deducted for minimal audience interaction and for not playing breakthrough hit Sheila). Despite these quibbles, Jamie treated the LCR to best gig it’s seen in a while with a surprisingly well-rounded performance that deftly combined refined craftsmanship with manic moshing.