From: Justin
| We got to Irving Plaza around 8:00pm which was when the
doors were to be opened. There was definitely an excitement in the air
coming from the people in line waiting around the corner. A lot of people
were looking for tickets. When we got in, we cased the joint because it was my first time seeing a show at Irving Plaza. Then we went upstairs and stood in one place in front of the stage for an hour and a half. While we were waiting there were two projectors pointed at opposite ends of the room. There were showing slides of words and pictures of the band and miscellaneous artwork from covers and such. Finally around 9:30 the light went down and stayed down for about ten minutes. When they did come on they were welcomed a screaming audience. The first thing that Richard said from my memory is "I'm fucking drunk" and some other stuff about who bought a Northern Soul and then they proceeded to start playing the album. Here's a pretty reliable set list given to me by Paul from Penn who wrote down the songs that night as they played them: a new decade this is music life's an ocean on your own the drugs don't work catching the butterfly a man called sun sonnet weeping willow rolling people stormy clouds (reprise) --- bitter sweet symphony history lucky man come on A new Decade was an awesome opening. It had a lot of life in the performance. Unfortunately Richard had lost his voice the night before so he didn't sound as good as he possibly could have. He sounded pretty bad during A Man Called Sun, but I later saw footage of him singing it and he sounded about the same as he sounded in '93 when he sang it. Personal highlights for me were when they played Stormy Clouds, Weeping Willow, and A new Decade. They sounded good through everything though. The band played especially brilliantly. Nick McCabe is amazing and his guitar work was so dreamy and beautiful but at the same time driven by something. Simon Jones was visibly drunk and and Peter Salisbury sounded really tight with Jones. I don't care about simon tong. From my point of view, he didn't add too much. Dissapointments for the show for me were the lack of Storm songs and Richard losing his voice somewhat. The crowd was on the whole, pretty good but there were some exceptions that I was unhappy about, like people moshing to weeping willow and stormy clouds. This was my third time seeing the Verve and I thought that new material wasn't going to be that great but it was. I'm very happy and I hope to see them again soon. All you old school fans, keep up the love and thank Ajay for putting together such a great page for us to take advantage of... |
From: Mike M
| I was in the balcony also the second night. Amazing show, the 6th time I've had the pleasure of seeing them live. I've never seen Richard go so nuts during Come On and throwing the tamborines around. You're right Nick was amazing, I stared in awe too! After the show I hung around with my wife near the VIP section, cause that's where the band entered from. All of a sudden the band comes out walking very fast surrounded by big burly security guards. I shouted to Nick and asked him to sign my UH cd. He said he couldn't right then, that they had to leave. However, I did the same to Richard, and the guard tried to block me. Richard pushed the guards arms out of the way and sad he'd be glad to sign my cd. I told him it was one of their best shows that I've been to. That was so cool of him. |
From: Editbw@aol.com
| was an amazing bit of luck to get to see the Verve back
together for two shows in a row. The first show was great, but still left
something to wish for when compared with shows I have seen on past tours.
Still, the shear joy I felt seeing the band was overwhelming. The second
night was a completely different story all together. Richard set the tone by
coming onto stage and immediately broke into a rant about all the people who
did not buy Northern Soul and how they could fuck right off because he
didn't want them in the Verve "posse". He then screamed "I'm fucked up" and
he certainly was. I have never seen him, or for that matter, anyone else as
totally annilated in my life. It definitely made for one amazing show. After
a riotous finale of "Come On" the crowd silently filed out, obviously a bit
taken back by the intensity of what they had just gone through. I overheard
more than one group of people stating how they did not want to talk about
what they has seen. Of all the Verve shows I've been to it had to be both
the best and most intense ever. Seeing them two nights later in Boston
proved to be a bit of a let down as the band had obviously given everything
they had in N.Y. Hence Richard talking about how he had lost his voice and
soul during their stay in N.Y. Hilight of the show: Richard before "Come On" singing "I went to my doctor..., He's got a little pill for me, just a little luxury" acapella, and very fucked up |
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