Review: James, Better Than That Tour, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, August 18

2-4-6-8 moat away! Glory be, the gap between band and audience had gone, the water no longer running in front of the stage at a modified Scarborough Open Air Theatre, where the crowd can now stand at the feet of the star attractions.

After support act Badly Drawn Boy signed off in beatific mood with a solo rendition of "a Manchester song", The Stone Roses' I Wanna Be Adored, fellow Mancunian veterans James emerged in the darkening light, but still warm night air at 9pm.

Tim Booth soon removed an extraneous woolly hat but retained his furry, hooded coat throughout, to go with his loose-fit pantaloons for his trademark rubber-legged, limbo dancing. "It's good to see you're not drowning in the water," said the Boston Spa-born frontman, diving straight into his first reference to the aforementioned moat that had prevented Booth from conducting his usual crowd-surfing at James's first appearance here in 2015.

James have a new album, so percussive and passionate, to promote and a new percussionist to go with it, Charlie XCX's exuberant drummer Deborah Knox-Hewson, and they were quick off the mark with three selections from Living In Extraordinary Times: the zeitgeist title track, the pounding thump-thump-thump of the anti-Trump Hank and the utterly joyous Better Than That, wherein Booth couldn't resist going walkabout for the first time.

"I hope you've come prepared for the new record," he said, and it was clear James fans had done their homework, such was their singalong reaction to Better Than That, Coming Home (Pt 2) and in particular Many Faces, an acoustic call for unity in these blighted, bigoted, blind-alley Brexit days. "There's only one human race, many faces, everybody belongs here", rang out the mantra, as Booth stood back to absorb all the terracing taking over the singing.

James's present is as impactful as their gloried past, and even when leaving out Laid, Born Of Frustration and Just Like Fred Astaire, there is a lovely balance to their set list. An extended Sound had never sounded better, Andy Diagram's trumpet rising high; Sit Down was reinvented for a sit-down, slower, mesmeric, cushioned in cello and viola.

Moving On, written in memory of Booth's late mother, has become an anthem for the departure lounge of life, cherished by so many, and the night went into overdrive as he went crowd-surfing, still singing when his body pressed against the sea of hands, in How Was It For You and made his way up the terrace, far, far from his stage "home" in Come Home.

"Tomorrow" recalled so many shared yesterdays for James devotees in their be-flowered T-shirts, and maximising every minute, rather than going off and on for an encore, Booth and band sped to the finishing line with Sometimes (Lester Piggott). There is nothing "sometimes" about James; every time they affirm themselves as a great English live band, not so much Better Than That as better than ever.