Stockholm Arenan 22nd September - spliff rollin roadies of the world, unite

With about 1500 people in the audience, 9 o´clock a friday evening, Richard Ashcroft didn´t have the easiet of tasks before him. Spite a few embarrasing moments of silence, guitar string snaps he managed to pull this ship through, though with a little help from his spliff rolling roadie.

Opening softly with Brave New World and onto the heavy artillery at once. The Drugs Don´t Work, already as the second song - took us home. After a few minutes of TDDW he stopped the band saying: "Wait, wait, wait, that verse gotta come out right you know. The words gotta be right, you know wadda mean". He commenced playing again and than stopped, irritated but with a smile: "been playing that song for five years but still don´t know the fucking chords, well, tonight the drugs don´t fucking work". The song resumed and he managed to play it right in the third try.
This is where the spliff rolling roadie makes his entrance: "perhaps I haven´t had enough drugs, now, you just have to wait a few seconds while I smoke this spliff" and then the band explodes into Space And Time.
At this moment I believe he had convinced the audience but something happened. I Get My Beat was too long and Sonnet was painfully weakend by the absence of Nick McCabe. And due to the small audience a few embarrasing moments of silence (first dates you know) occured between a few songs which is explained by the small audience and the time the concert started. 9 o´clock is almost late afternoon and the venue didn´t even sell any decent beer, so...

"I bet if we were here with the name, The Verve, there would have been another ten thousand people here. We´re playing the same songs you know. But you are the faithful, you have seen through all the shit, thank you"

For the encore Richard stood there alone with his guitar and played History which was like a dream come true. His voice was rich and it penetrated the cores of the audience. This penetration continues as he plays A Song For The Lovers acoustic with a guy on percussion and a fella with a muffled trumpet. The hair on my neck was rising and they were completely stiff as he began playing Bitter Sweet Symphony alone with his guitar again. In the end his guitar string snapped and he completed it acappella. "I take you down the only road I´ve ever been down, na na, I take you down the only road I´ve ever been down, na na" and then it burst out in a cacaphony of strings and we were all getting our ya yas out. This continues for about ten minutes and the last three of them Richard rants music, music, music. It all ends and to the sound of the string loop he thanks us for letting him be himself.

This is music in it´s true sense, and we thank it for being itself, yes, we thank Richard for being himself.

Setlist

Brave New World
Drugs Don't Work
Space & Time
Get My Beat
Sonnet
C'mon People
On A Beach
Lucky Man
You On My Mind
Velvet Morning
New York
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History
Song For The Lovers
Bittersweet