More than three decades after Laid became the album most closely associated with James, the Manchester band are bringing it back to Australia. Just don’t expect them to treat it like a museum piece.
James return this October for their first Australian shows since 2018, joined by Razorlight and performing Laid in full alongside songs drawn from a career now spanning 18 studio albums and more than four decades.
Even Laid isn’t being preserved exactly as it was in 1993. Many of its songs remain open to improvisation, others have been reworked, and the album will be threaded through changing setlists rather than simply played from beginning to end. Each night is intended to take its own shape.
That unpredictability has been part of James almost from the beginning. Emerging from Manchester in the early 1980s, they were already seven years into their existence when Madchester exploded around them. While connected to that scene, their influences stretched much further, from The Beatles and The Doors to The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop.
Laid came from another unexpected turn. After James toured acoustically with Neil Young across America, Brian Eno encouraged them to carry some of that restraint into the studio. The resulting album became one of their defining records, although its biggest calling card proved to be the short, deceptively simple title track.
Three decades later, Laid remains central to the James story, but the band have resisted allowing it to define everything that followed.
That point was emphatically made in 2024 when Yummy became their first UK number one studio album. Four decades into their career, James were still adding significant milestones rather than simply revisiting old ones.
The way they create music has remained surprisingly consistent. Improvisation sits at the heart of their songwriting, with songs emerging collectively before finding their final shape. That looseness carries into the live shows, particularly with the current nine-piece line-up of multi-instrumentalists.
It means a James set can move between the immediate rush of their best-known singles and far less predictable territory. Songs can stretch, arrangements can shift and setlists change according to the night rather than following an inflexible script.
Australian audiences have had a long relationship with the band, helped by early support from triple j and reinforced across repeated visits. Their last Australian tour came in 2018, making this October’s return an overdue one.
The timing is good, as a new documentary James: Getting Away With It has recently arrived, tracing the personalities, tensions, creative turns and sheer persistence behind a band whose history has rarely followed a straightforward path.
James October 2026 Australian and NZ Tour Dates
Thursday 8th October – Red Hill Auditorium, PERTH
Saturday 10th October – Margaret Court Arena, MELBOURNE
Sunday 11th October – Hordern Pavilion, SYDNEY
Tuesday 13th October – Fortitude Music Hall, BRISBANE
Thursday 15th October – Civic Theatre, AUCKLAND, NZ (James Only)
Tickets On Sale Now From: https://www.destroyalllines.
