Jamie T‘s four-date comeback tour arrived in Liverpool last night, where the singer-songwriter played an hour-long set to an ecstatic crowd, debuting five songs from his forthcoming album ‘Carry On The Grudge’.
The tour, which kicked off on Tuesday night at the Glasgow School of Art, sees Jamie T return to the live stage for his first live dates since October 2010.
Outside the gig in Liverpool, tickets were changing hands for up to £50 outside the 450-capacity venue, while inside anticipation built as the crowd repeatedly chanted his name.
When he did appear, it was to rapturous cheers, and he opened with the first new song of the night, the melancholic ‘Limits Lie’. That was followed by recent comeback single ‘Don’t You Find’, which the crowd sung along to word-for-word, despite the track only being released earlier this month. The other new songs – ‘Mary Lee’, ‘Murder of Crows’ and ‘They Told Me It Rained’ – hinted at a tonal shift from his earlier work, and were largely bereft of any hip-hop influence.
The response to the new material was enthusiastic, but predictably, it was older tracks like ‘Salvador’, ‘368’ and ‘If You Got The Money’ that drew the loudest cheers. By the time ‘Sticks and Stones’ brought the 13-song set to a close, the crowd’s enthusiasm spilled over into a mini stage-invasion.
Though he was clearly enjoying himself, he kept his words to a minimum throughout, making only a passing reference to his four-year absence, saying “it’s good to be back”, and later promising fans that he would return “soon”.
Jamie T played:
‘Limits Lie’
‘Don’t You Find’
‘So Lonely Was The Ballard’
‘Salvador’
‘Hocus Pocus’
‘Mary Lee’
‘Murder Of Crows’
‘368’
‘Ike n Tina’
‘They told Me It Rained’
‘If You Got The Money’
‘Man’s Machine’
‘Sticks and Stones’