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Review of N.Y. Irving Plaza
gig of 11-05-97 from "Spin" Magazine
Review of N.Y. Irving Plaza
gig of 11-06-97 by oceania@worldnet.att.net
THE VERVE
Irving Plaza
New York, NY
November 5,
1997
Richard
Ashcroft, lead singer of UK sensation-of-the-moment, the Verve, must have
visited the same psychic that told Kula Shaker's Crispian Mills that his
band was going to be "very busy for the next ten years." Back
after an amicable break-up in 1995, the Verve is now riding a massive wave
of popularity thanks to their hit single "Bittersweet Symphony,"
an over the top in rock quality new LP, Urban Hymns, and a wonderful
friendship with Verve cheerleader Oasis's Noel Gallagher.
As the house
lights went down and the roar of the crowd went up, a blinding beam of
laser lights signaled the entrance of the Verve. Guitarist Nick Mccabe,
bassist Simon Jones, drummer Pete Salisbury, and keyboardist Simon Tong
walked out, followed by Richard Ashcroft, ever the consummate showman in
matching white shirt & jeans, and the famed black shoes from the
"Bittersweet Symphony" video. The band took the stage and
launched into "A New Decade," the track from their second LP A
Northern Soul's introducing the crowd to a an hour and a half set of pure
sonic bliss.
The groovy,
pschedelicized set was a mix of the band's three LPs--A Storm In Heaven, A
Northern Soul, and Urban Hymns--and had an arena gleam that might be more
at home at Madison Square Garden. On songs like "Slide Away,"
"Man Called Sun," and "Stormy Clouds" various audience
members could be seen in a trance-state, often levitating with eyes rolled
upward.
On the more
subdued tracks like "On Your Own," "Drugs Don't Work,"
and "Sonnet" Ashcroft strummed away on an acoustic guitar,
letting the melody flow and seemingly cleanse his body. "The Rolling
People," was the most potent song of the night where the band got to
bare their teeth, indeed achieving what they had wished to do all along:
Make rock dangerous once again.
Ashcroft
kept the onstage chatter to a bare minimum, stopping only to introduce a
song or two or say thank you to the adoring crowd. Often, he would beckon
the crowd closer and closer, hoping to incite a riot that surprisingly
never happened. There wasn't even stage diving or crowd surfing!
Finally,
after closing the set with "Stormy Clouds," the band took an
extremely short break, only to come back and play the hit song,
"Bittersweet Symphony." Complete with a recording of the famed
string section, the band pleased the majority of the newer fans, but the
real piece de resistance was combined in the last two songs,
"History" and Urban Hymns closer, "Come On."
"We're
gonna leave you with a fu**ing good one!" Ashcroft chanted before
"Come On," a song that closed the show at an apex. Ten minutes of
sound that seemed too much for an opening night. After three years away
from New York, it was a strong comeback show for the Verve--enough to make
a believer out of the uninitiated.
by Arleen
Colone
THE VERVE- IRVING PLAZA
NOVEMBER 6TH 1997 NYC
IT'S BEEN
FIVE YEARS THAT I'VE WANTED TO SEE THE VERVE LIVE AND DESPITE THE HIGH
EXPECTATIONS I MUST SAY THAT I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED at all. SEEING THE
VERVE LIVE is an experience which indicates that rock starts and ends with
this momentous band. I was very surprised with the composition of the crowd
which ranged from the young, mother and daughter, oldish and even yuppyish
especially given the fact that to get a ticket you either had to be quick
or generous. There seemed to be no casual onlookers around, most of the
people, I was relieved, were invaribaly familiar with Verve material some
even repeating the experience of the night before and hyping the atmosphere
even more before the show. Pre-concert atmosphere was very cool with a slow
paced slide show (with messages like "there would be no rules without
rulebreakers" and the like) and very cool music which I would be very
interested to find out what it was (I recognised Trainspotting and some
Electric Prunes). This music was a perfect backdrop for the tension/anticipation
that was slowly accumulating. And at 9.30 the PA stopped playing music and
the greatest band in the world came out and immediately without even them
starting a song it became apparent that these guys have a lot of
confidence, that they are on a road that has no return. You could tell that
these sort of gigs are stepping stones to something bigger. Much bigger.
And Richard..has the aura of a man who is doing exactly what he was brought
in this world to do. Which makes him a lucky man. First song was "A
New Decade" and then "This is Music". Richard lit a joint on
the first song gave us the middle finger and claimed that he lost his voice
from the previous night but it seemed pretty damn good to me. He dedicated
these songs to "any fucker that bought A Northern SouL". And we
all know that Urban Hymns will make the band huge but ANS was the Verve at
its most raw, effective and emotional. From then on I don't rmember the
exact sequence of songs only that no songs from A Storm in Heaven were played.
It was amazing: On Your Own, Drugs Don't Work (terrific), catching the
butterfy, a fantastic merging of Stormy Clouds and reprise of Brainstorm
Interlude from ANS, A Man Called Sun, Sonnet, The Rolling People, Weeping
Willow, Lifes an Ocean and most perfect of all History. The encore included
Bittersweet Symphony (live I found it missed something), Lucky Man and
ofcourse the orgasmic Come On in which Richard lead the crowd on to a
frenzy with his dionysian dancing and taunting of the front row. End. In essence
I feel great to have seen a great band at its most humble, raw and most
earnest before they got too big and who knows what they will become.
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