It’s been quite a year for Richard Ashcroft, whether opening for the reformed Oasis on their stadium-sized comeback shows or scoring another No 2 album with Lovin’ You. Now, this one-off 23,500-capacity show ahead of next year’s arena tour finds the 54-year-old northerner performing with a rocket-boosted confidence reminiscent of his 90s days in the Verve.
Back then, the music press dubbed the singer “Mad Richard” for his messianic belief in music and eye-rocketing suggestion that on a good night he could fly. Thirty years later, his arsenal of moves – raining air punches on imaginary foes and so on – would alert the emergency services in any other environment. But on stage, they are ridiculously compelling.
Although the opening songs are hampered by muddy sound, the perma-sunglassed singer performs as almost physically trying to transport himself and audience to a higher plane. “Who wants to go up again?” he yells, adding an extra chorus to Music Is Power. A strings section and backing vocalists turn the relatively unloved C’Mon People (We’re Making It Now) into an uplifting epic.
Ashcroft is self-aware enough to caution about an approaching “slow one from the new album” and he describes Oh L’Amour as “my Charles Aznavour moment”, but croons it beautifully. His solo career has certainly had its wobbles but was built on the foundations of the Verve-era ballads that come from a deeper place than most pop. The rarely played History from 1995 is raw and wounded. The Drugs Don’t Work – generally believed to be about his father’s death – visibly moves the audience. Sonnet and Lucky Man receive such applause that the singer yells “I wish the music teacher that said I was a ‘cancer in the class’ was here to see this now”.
Bitter Sweet Symphony may be 28 years old but lines such as “you’re a slave to money then you die” still clearly speak to modern Britain. A stellar nine-minute rendition sees the singer theatrically fall to his knees to illustrate the words and unleashes a vast, cathartic sing-along, with scenes resembling a gigantic Last Night of the Proms.
• Richard Ashcroft plays Utilita Arena, Cardiff on March 24, then tours
