From: Ben
| Just for completeness sake, I am posting a brief review
of Sundays gig at the barrowlands. A DJ was on before hand, playing I think I would describe them as old soul records, maybe funk, but they were old (one was the one sampled by De La Soul on 'Potholes in my lawn' obscure trivia fans). Personally, having seen so few good support acts, it was a relief that it was all verve. 10.10 - verve come on. A new decade kicks in. (The set list was the same as for Sheffield). Richard was 'mad for it' and seemed to be having the time of his life. The beginning was so perfect it sent tingles down my spine and almost brought tears to my eyes. Everyone went mad for 'this is music', 'On your own'. There wasn't much communication between the band in terms of musical banter, but when Richard announced the next song was 'Man Called Sun' when it was actually on your own, he was told by one of the others he had got it wrong. They seemed to be a band absolutely content with themselves, fully aware of the power of the songs they were playing. At the end of 'Man Called Sun' Richard started chanting something about 'blue skies' (I thought at first he had begun to sing 'Bullet Blue Sky' by U2). 'Man Called Sun' is the smiley acid face, no? Up to around Sonnet, ('don't sound like no sonnet, oh lord' he growls in his introduction, sounds better than the demo - a bit rockier) it was wonderful (except for DDW, which sounds best with RA alone, acoustic). After that, it began to wonder a bit - the songs off the end of ANS that they played are probably my least favorite verve songs. Rolling People (which was introduced as 'off our new album') gets better each time I hear it (and it was nice to be able to sing along to songs that probably only 2 or 3 others out of the thousandish people who were there had ever heard). But the encore was blinding - BSS sounds great, as does (only the 3rd ever performance?) History, but these were all blown away by 'Come On'. This sounds better than the Evening Session version - it starts with bass like 'slide away', and ends in a swirl of pulsing guitar - dare I say it - a better end than 'gravity grave'. To say this is the best gig I have ever been to needs to be qualified by saying that this is true even though they didn't play 'Gravity Grave', 'She's a Superstar' or 'Blue'. It could have been better, but it didn't need to be. The best gig I've ever been to, no question. Is there any point in any bands other than verve, oasis and radiohead - I don't think so. Ocean Duller Scene, Cast, Kula Shaker should all pack their bags now. |
From: NME
| "... "So we were alright after all, motherfuckers... COME
ON!" Even as resurrections go, it's an auspicious one. Richard Ashcroft
stands right on the edge of the stage, still for a moment then shaking, his
hands twitching first before the spirit shoots right through that
ridiculously thin frame. He's grinning now, mad and ecstatic, like a convert
speaking in tongues on some screwed-up deep south Bible channel. Now he's
clinging to the mic stand, grinning still, as if in danger of being swept
away by the feedback. Finally Ashcroft lets go, staggers towards Nick McCabe
until the guitarist hits another monolithic chord and he's winded and
clutching his gut, doubled up, crumpling to the floor. Friendship with Liam
Gallagher has not, it's fair to say, dulled his stagecraft. You join us, then, at 1997's true second coming. For The Verve, once more, are in full gravity-defying effect, getting on with the simple business of investing every single note and every last gesture with a frankly awe-inspiring sense of importance. Two years away have not changed The Verve's resolve. There's a high seriousness to everything they do that can, at times, be unnerving. And it's there when the singer lashes out at the doubters who thought the band's volatile alchemy would cause them to implode once more before they even stepped back out on a stage. Not many bands get a second chance like this, but then not many bands have supporters as high-profile and vociferous as Oasis to mythologise them while they take a two-year hiatus. Right now it looks like splitting up for a while was a superb business move, too, to return just as Britain grows weary of the plethora of mundane and chirpy Britpop and Noelrock drones with nothing of significance to say. Epic, it seems, is back. Pretension is probably OK for a while. Songs about the temporal nature of the human condition with long wallowing guitar solos are fine. Which all suits The Verve very nicely. So Richard Ashcroft can swagger back and open his mouth into huge silent screams and send everyone here into raptures instead of laughing fits, behaving like he always did - like the biggest and most divine rock star this humble planet has ever seen - but this time being really convincing. So The Verve can play new songs and have people crying at them, can play ancient B-sides ('A Man Called Sun') and have thousands singing along, and can play 'History' and somehow make another NME journalist's trousers spontaneously split apart. There are, in fact, four new songs. Two - the solemnly anthemic 'Sonnet' and the blazing 'Rolling People' - are the kind of enormous but humane constructs that the ever artless Noel Gallagher has tried and failed to create for the lumbering folly that is 'Be Here Now'. Another, 'Come On', takes off where 'A Northern Soul' finished, a momentously heavy freak-out fantastically reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love'. And one more, 'Drugs Don't Work', may well be The Verve's first Number One when it comes out in a week or two. A weepy, sweeping country ballad inflated to typically gigantic Verve proportions - Simon Tong, a valuable new addition, orchestrates a thousand violins from the safety of his keyboard - it sees Ashcroft soberly and movingly coming to terms with the fact that getting high won't help him beat the loss of his loved one. Watching him, though, makes it clear that music - his own band's, chiefly - can help him deal with these little things like heartbreak and, oh, the ultimate futility of existence. If 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' uses music as a metaphor for life, then Ashcroft's total focus gives the impression that music is, for him, the only thing worth living for. Not much goes wrong, really. McCabe does not storm off in disgust, or try and lamp Ashcroft, preferring to stay in the shadows at the back and craft great torrents of freaked-out, transcendental noise. 'On Your Own' still sounds annoyingly like a proto-'Wonderwall', albeit with the somewhat inevitable general-meaninglessness-of-existence subtext. And the mighty, graceful 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' is a tiny bit muted, as the stabbing string samples disappear into the mix. A proper orchestra for stadium shows next summer should sort that out. Because, make no mistake, stadiums are where The Verve are heading. They've talked a magnificent fight for years, while not quite fulfilling all the propaganda and potential. Now, though, everything is right. When Richard Ashcroft turns to face the crowd as '...Symphony' kicks in, sees them as transported and euphoric as he is by this music, and beams with delight, it's plain he knows this. He's on top of the world, and he's not coming down for a good while yet." |
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