Richard Ashcroft
Alone With Everybody
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For $12.48

The long wait for Richard Ashcroft fans came to an end at 9:30 on this Thursday night as the former singer-guitarist of The Verve finally took the stage wearing a long, ridiculous-looking fur coat over his leather jacket (he shed both quickly). The 29-year-old Ashcroft had been scheduled to appear back in November but was forced to postpone his first solo U.S. tour when he walked off the side of the stage following a concert in England and broke several ribs.

With his band The Verve and on his solo debut, Alone With Everybody, Ashcroft has combined lush orchestration, loops and other modern production touches, soulful and occasionally funky melodicism and sonorous vocals. The solo record also mixes gospel, blues and a hint of country into the sonic stew to go with the lulling, psychedelic sprawl of his former band. At some British shows, Ashcroft has been known to bring along a ten-piece band to help recreate the depth and epic, moody, early ‘70s vibe of his recorded work. But for these U.S. dates, Ashcroft is mostly solo acoustic, backed occasionally by a keyboard player, flute/saxophone player and percussionist.

As random phrases and images flashed on the screens behind him, Ashcroft grabbed the audience early with “Brave New World” from the solo record followed in quick succession by Verve favorites “Lucky Man,” “Sonnet,” and “Space and Time.” Indeed the set was nearly evenly divided between Alone and tunes from his former band’s most successful stateside release, 1997’s Urban Hymns.

Because of the stripped down configuration, Ashcroft was at his best when he was working with a strong melody as with the mid-set one-two punch of the touching “You On My Mind In My Sleep” and the pretty “The Drugs Don’t Work.”

Ashcroft explored his lower vocal range with “On A Beach” but the song went on a little too long, incorporating both sax and flute solos. It’s long been my view that the flute has no place in rock and roll, and this show did little to change my mind. The catchy “I Get My Beat” suffered from too much flute as well.

And if he wasn’t the most energetic, charismatic performer on this night, Ashcroft was in fine voice throughout the evening. He seems to have combined some of the best attributes of the best Brit pop singers of the last twenty years. Listen closely and you can hear echoes of Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen, Liam Gallagher of Oasis, Ian Brown of The Stone Roses and others. His voice probably would have sounded good even without the heavy reverb the soundman felt compelled to glop onto it.

A four song encore included an aborted take on Alone's “Slow Was My Heart,” a request from someone in the front row of the packed house. Ashcroft also offered up the song he said was the first he had the confidence to say he wrote, “See You In the Next One” from the Verve’s 1993 album Storm In Heaven. Stripped of its lush studio arrangement, Alone's “A Song For the Lovers” bore more than a passing resemblance to The Church’s “Under the Milky Way.” And after promising to bring the “full funk-a-delic orchestra” next time, Ashcroft wrapped up the hour and twenty minute set with a nice, stripped down version of the string section sample-laden “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” the song that finally broke The Verve in the States. All in all, it was worth the long wait.

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