James Bay – Brooklyn Paramount – Brooklyn (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)

PopEntertainment
7 days ago
2 min read

James Bay – Brooklyn Paramount – Brooklyn, NY – May 22, 2025

The last time I saw James Bay perform was almost six years ago at The Met in Philadelphia. His sophomore album Electric Light was just a year old and his signature hat was temporarily on the shelf. Just ahead of the 2025 Memorial Day weekend, James performed at the newly reopened Brooklyn Paramount, a beautiful venue with a shimmering marquee visible from blocks away.

At 9 o’clock on the dot James took the stage, opening the show with “Up All Night,” a single he released last summer alongside his tour mates at the time, Noah Kahan and The Lumineers. The setlist was balanced with classics from his first album to some of his most recent, Changes All The Time.

Before I head to a show I tend to look at the setlist from the tour stop before (this method has its pros and cons). In this case, it turned out that the setlist I looked at missed a few songs, so you can imagine my surprise when he played a mashup of songs I did not expect to hear that night. “Peer Pressure” into “Craving” into “ Pink Lemonade” ended up being one of my favorite moments in the show. It was one surprise after the next, a song from three different James Bay eras, if you will, combined into one energizing moment.

Throughout the set and most notably as he performed “Best Fake Smile” James’ musicality shined through guitar solos. 2025 is the 10-year anniversary of James’ debut album, Chaos And The Calm. His signature hat made a return this time around, and whether it was intentional or not, nostalgia filled the room as he closed out the show with a fan favorite, “Hold Back the River.”

Ruth Bekele