From: Jim Sullivan
| VERVE: According to Webster's New World College
Dictionary, Third Edition): 1. vigor and energy, as in movement, portrayal
etc. 2. exuberant enthusiasm, spirit, dash. The Verve (according to our partisan observation at Harborlights Pavilion Sunday night): 1. turgid, pretentious English band formed in 1993, with a Rolling Stone cover to its credit in 1997; one big hit and a whole lotta hooey 2. movement - predictable, meandering, enervating. 3. principal guitarist Nick McCabe on hiatus with 52-year-old session guitarist and pedal steel ace B.J. Cole filling in while band tries to cash in. The hardest line to swallow: Singer Richard Ashcroft bleating ''We're gonna try our best to blow your [expletive] minds!'' before playing ''This Time.'' The hit, of course, is ''Bitter Sweet Symphony,'' a sweeping, elegiac synth-string-laden song of desperate hope-against-hope that was omnipresent last year. It was the key track from the Verve's third album, ''Urban Hymns,'' and it became an alt-rock anthem for the smart 'n' sad set. In record time, though, it mutated into a Nike TV advertisement. This transmogrification, in effect, said to those fans: ''Hey, everything is for sale, even our soul. And, if you would, please buy Nike.'' Still, ''Bitter Sweet Symphony'' is the song just about everyone in the audience of 3,604 came to hear at Harborlights and it was played ... last. Dead last. As in: If we play this earlier, you, dear audience, will be gone with the wind and we will be alone. And, thus, we will be sad. They were sad enough, one suspects, that paltry ticket sales suggested a venue downsizing from Tsongas Arena in Lowell to Harborlights. At least, for us city folk, that meant less travel time, free parking, a beautiful skyline view, $6.50 cheeseburgers, and $5.50 beer. The Verve used to be led by Ashcroft and McCabe. These guys tangled two years ago and just about split up the band. Now, with McCabe resting at home, the angsty Ashcroft is carrying the weight with his three anonymous-looking Verve-mates (aided by touring percussionist Steve Sidelynk) and a boatload of chemical smoke and Pink Floyd-ian visual aids. To wit, three large circles on the scrim behind the band showed various psychedelic video clips and lighting exhibitions. It all got so frenzied, so darn intense, during ''Come On'' that, following the song, everyone had to leave the stage. Actually, that song - a rare uptick in energy - was the last planned song of the regular set and, really, the only one guaranteed to coax encore-esque applause. And it was written: The encore came, manna from heaven was dropped, and the masses were thankful. This was the fourth show of an 11-date North American tour. Through pretty much all of this 90-minute slog the Verve moved in a lulling, mid-tempo mode. ''Space and Time'' and ''Sonnet'' held some vague promise early on: a heavenward trajectory and an agreeable lilt were spotted. Soon, though, the stabs at beauty and transcendence sank into the banality of the familiar, exposing a limited art-rock vision and a workmanlike way with the pop cliche. In this the Verve came off as Radiohead Jr. With this tour, it may well be that the book closes on the Verve. The moment - and you can feel it - has passed. |
From: The Boston Globe
| "The hardest line to swallow: Singer Richard Ashcroft
bleating "We're gonna try our best to blow your fuckin' minds!" before playing 'This Time'. The hit, of course is 'Bitter Sweet Symphony', a sweeping , elegiac synth-string-laden song of deperate hope against hope that was omnipresent last year…. An alt-rock anthem for the smart 'n' sad set. In record time, though, it mutated into a Nike TV advertisement. This trans mogrification, in effect, said to those fans: "Hey, everything is for sale, even our soul. And, if you would, please buy Nike." Still 'BSS' is the song just about everyone in the audience of 3,604 came to hear at Harborlights and it was played last. Dead last. As in: If we play this earlier, you, dear audience, will be gone with the wind and we will be alone. And, thus, we will be sad. They were sad enough, one suspects, that paltry ticket sales suggested a venue downsizing from Tsongas Arena in Lowell to Harborlights. At least, for us city folk, that meant less travel time, free parking, a beautiful skyline view, $6.50 cheesesburgers, and $5.50 beer." - BOSTON GLOBE (very enlightened) |
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