James lead singer Tim Booth on the band’s latest Scottish festival date at Electric Fields

APPEARING at what’s known as Scotland’s best small festival will be a bit of a contrast for James.

The band are regulars on the festival circuit and lead singer Tim Booth recalls playing to a crowd just a little bit larger – a quarter of a million strong.

Electric Fields, in Dumfries & Galloway, is the gig James are performing at this week, but it was the massive Woodstock event in America that was on a whole other scale.

“That was the biggest we ever played,” Tim told iN10. “It was unplayable in a sense.

“You just kind of did your thing as you couldn’t direct your energy anywhere.

“Everywhere you looked there were people. It went to the top of the horizon and beyond.”

The band were in Scotland earlier this month, appearing at the Party At The Palace in Linlithgow.

Electric Fields is a three-day bonanza this year. James are the headliners on Thursday, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds top a busy bill on Friday and it all rounds off on Saturday with Leftfield headlining.

Tim says Scotland is always a favourite on their touring circuit and fans will get another chance to see them on December 5 when they play the SSE Hydro on a joint tour with The Charlatans.

The select, big-venue gigs also include arena dates in London, Manchester and Leeds.

“Glasgow is like a second home to us,” said Tim.

“It’s usually a little too wild for me to go in the audience – it’s one of the few places where doing that can be a bit foolish!”

The band have a remarkable back catalogue of hits, including Laid, Sit Down, She’s A Star, Say Something and Destiny Calling.

But what the fans will hear on any given night is, Tim confesses, a bit of a lottery.

He says they often don’t decide what is going into their set list until about 90 minutes before they get on stage. And even then it might change.

“Festivals are always a little tougher for us as you usually don’t get a sound check to work things out.

“It’s a bit more of a roll of the dice as we need to hear each other really well because we improvise.

“We don’t just run through the hits. Predictability is death. We might look at what we’ve played before in that area and what the band are really firing on.

“There might be some songs that aren’t quite working. If we haven’t got our heart in them, then we don’t play them.”

Although they have been around for more than 25 years, James are very much firing on all cylinders musically.

They have just released their 15th studio album, Living In Extraordinary Times. Their previous one, 2016’s Girl At The End Of The World, shot into the album charts at No.2, their highest debut entry in nearly 20 years and only Adele kept it off top spot.

The title of the new album reflects what many think about the current state of world affairs.

And Tim, who lives in America, had a certain US President firmly in his sights when he was penning the tracks.

“I was writing the lyrics to this record when Trump was coming to power.

“Usually political issues don’t come out when I’m writing, it’s more likely to be intimate, personal things.

“But it was just so appalling witnessing someone like Trump get elected. I actually banished him to a couple of songs as he threatened to take over the album.

“On the whole, the album is very uplifting, but there are those two songs that are pretty directly about him.”

Tim is urging those going to Electric Fields this week to at least have a listen or two to familiarise themselves with the new album as quite a few will certainly find their way on to the variable set list.

And despite his lengthy time in the music business, he insists he’s lost none of his enthusiasm.

“I’m enjoying it more than ever,” he adds.

“Our heroes have always been mavericks who didn’t quite fit in like Springsteen and Leonard Cohen. They could keep going until they drop dead and hopefully that’s what we’ll do.”

James, Electric Fields Festival, Drumlanrig Castle, Thursday (Festival continues to Saturday), electricfieldsfestival.com