Guitarist Johnny Marr and co-headliner James played a sold-out show at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles on Thursday night, the second of a two-night stop on the current U.S. tour led by two of Manchester’s most enduring post-punk music acts.
Marr generally needs no introduction to L.A. fans. The iconic ex-guitarist, co-founder, and co-songwriter of The Smiths (1982-1987), the Manchester band famously fronted by singer Morrissey, went on to record music and perform with other bands like The Pretenders, Talking Heads, and Modest Mouse before embarking on a solo career in the mid-2010s. Marr is touring in support of a new collection, Spirit Power: The Best of Johnny Marr, and a book of photographs called Marr’s Guitars, both released in 2023.
James, an eclectic and energetic Manchester group featuring the dazzling Tim Booth on lead vocals, joins Johnny Marr on this co-headlining tour. James, also founded in the 1980s, has been enjoying a resurgence in popularity after their 1993 hit song “Laid” appeared in the Season 3 finale of the Emmy-winning FX show The Bear. In April, James’ latest album Yummy debuted at #1 on UK album charts.
James reunites with Marr on this tour, which marks the first time the fellow Mancunians have shared a stage since Booth and the band supported The Smiths on their 1985 “Meat is Murder” tour. The ear-pleasing result was not just a trip down memory lane for my other, mostly 50-something (and older) Gen-Xers and me in the audience: watching Johnny Fucking Marr and Tim Booth lead James was an affirmation of why we love this old and new music from Manchester in the first place.
Johnny Fuckin Marr Shows Up for L.A.
Marr wasted no time starting the first set of the evening, scheduled to begin at 7:30 pm. Instead, Marr roared onto stage two minutes early, opening with the title track of his 2019 album, “Armatopia.” He greeted the audience before launching into the familiar strum-crash sequence of The Smiths’ 1986 “Panic,” sending the crowd into a swinging singalong.
Nearly half of Marr’s 14-song set were Smiths songs, a treat for any longtime fan who appreciates Marr’s signature sound that buoyed the band over its short-lived but culturally significant career. From the animated opening riff of “This Charming Man” and the acoustic beauty of “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” to the taunting chord progression of “The Headmaster Ritual,” Marr delivered classic Smiths hits that felt both nostalgic and new again.
Marr rounded out his set with rocking solo tracks like “Easy Money,” from his 2014 album Playland, a new single, “Somewhere,” and the 1990 Electronic hit “Getting Away with It,” a collaboration with Bernard Sumner of New Order and Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant that he called a “disco song from Manchester.”
Marr closed with the inevitable “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” the eternal Smiths song about a double-decker bus causing a pleasurable death that inspires fans’ most joyously maudlin singalong. Absent Morrissey’s vocals, Marr’s musicality shines through the songs in ways that remind fans that these Smiths songs are Marr’s, too, and only he can play them the way they’re meant to be heard.
James Reminds Us They Were There, Too
After the intermission, the exuberant James took the stage for the night’s closing set.
The band grew to fame during the “Madchester” era, the name for Manchester’s explosive indie music, arts, and dance scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s that spawned homegrown bands like New Order, The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, and Charlatans UK. Beyond the early 1990s hits they’re best known for in the States, James boasts a musical catalog of eighteen albums and a string of U.K. chart-topping songs spanning their four-decade career.
Tim Booth greeted the audience with a story about the song that earned praise from Morrissey and Marr on their first tour, priming the Marr-centric, Smiths-loving Los Angeles audience for their opening song, “Johnny Yen,” from their 1986 studio debut, Stutter. The galloping ballad about a motorcycle daredevil who “set himself on fire again” could be something right out of the Moz songbook, the perfect set opener to lure the audience in for more.
The second song, “Life is a Fucking Miracle,” a groovy track from the new album Yummy, sent Booth into the embracing audience, singing from the rows and energizing the crowd. Bald, lithe, and clad in a breezy, loose-flowing outfit, Booth sang from the balcony and the aisles, keeping the crowd engaged, mesmerizing us with frenetic yet rhythmic rag-doll dancing and his signature falsetto “wooo-oooo-hooo-hooo” vocalizations.
James performed the radio hits many of us knew, like “Born of Frustration,” the poetic “Sometimes,” and of course, “Laid.” Booth teased those who came just for those songs, attesting, “you’ll love these other songs, they’re really good, we promise.” The full nine-piece band shone on acoustic classics like “Sometimes,” newer songs like “Mobile God,” and the rollicking finale “Sound” from 1992’s Seven, where the beskirted trumpeter played a solo from the balcony like a mariachi.
James was a revelation and utter delight. They brought energy, joy, fun, and a Mancunian disco vibe to an unsuspecting downtown crowd that left with a renewed appreciation for James’ signature brand of twinkling, funky, danceable north English ear-candy.
Marr and James head to Texas, the East Coast, and the Midwest before closing out the U.S. leg of their joint tour in Minneapolis on October 18.
