Richard Ashcroft – Live Review – The Piece Hall, Halifax

By Steve Crabtree, August 2024

Tell you what, the Piece Hall has set the highest of bars for themselves with this year’s Live At The Piece Hall season. Nile Rodgers, Noel Gallagher, Blondie, Sheryl Crow, Bryan Adams… How they follow this next year, who knows?

But back in the here and now it was former frontman of The Verve Richard Ashcroft who was the next great to grace that enormous stage in the South-East corner of this magnificent piazza.

In the late 90s, The Verve were up there as one of the bands I took a shine to. I owned Urban Hymns, and I bought ‘Sonnet’ and ‘Lucky Man’ on CD single, housing it all within my eclectic music collection. So, having Richard Ashcroft as the latest name to come to Halifax meant it was another show I had to get myself along to.

“Stunningly beautiful”

Complete with trademark Ray Bans and a wave to the Halifax crowd, on strutted Ashcroft at around 9pm. He and his band wasted no time in launching into his 2016 track ‘Hold On’, and he sounded incredible. All 6000 of us who’d crammed into The Piece Hall were about to join in with everything Richard Ashcroft was going to throw our way.

‘Space and Time’ followed, before the stunningly beautiful ‘Sonnet’ drew loving cheers of appreciation from all sides of the courtyard. I’m not surprised – it’s my favourite song by The Verve, and it’s one of those songs where the execution in all departments – lyrically, musically, even the timing and the tempo is just perfect. You get a feeling from it. And live, it was just special.

But it wasn’t just us who were in awe of what was infront of us. As with most of the huge names of the 2024 Live at The Piece Hall, Ashcroft was fully aware of his surroundings. “It’s such a pleasure to be here” he said. “I’ve not been to a place like this since I was in Verona. Such a beautiful place.”

“A hero or two”

All night we flicked between songs by The Verve and Richard Ashcroft’s own work.  ‘Velvet Morning’ was brilliant. And ‘Break The Night With Colour’ gave us a softer sound than we’d been getting for much of the night.

Behind Richard Ashcroft and his band, we had a large screen that displayed TV screens, which either colourfully illustrated song, or supplemented its story. ‘A Song For The Lovers’ flashed up many famous people and their true loves – everyone in the audience spotting a hero or two of theirs in and amongst them. Myself included.

We were basking in all this music, and before tonight I wasn’t sure what to expect from Richard Ashcroft live. It was my first time seeing him, and I was probably more of a fan of The Verve than him on his own.  But, it’s fair to say I was taken aback at how good he was, and what a sensational night he put on for us Haligonians. What he gave us in terms of low song numbers, he delivered in length and sound.  Many of the tracks in his ten-song main set were elongated versions of the ones we all know, and there was no way we were short-changed.

“Stellar”

Of course, there were some huge big-hitters that we all wanted to hear, and those came at the end of the main set or in the encore. ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ and ‘Lucky Man’ were as stellar as you could have imagined them to be. Especially the latter.

And as he briefly left the stage, we knew he was coming back. He had to. Because, the thirteenth and final song was the masterful ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, and that just blew everyone away. Like ‘Sonnet’, you felt that song and our lungs certainly got a workout from joining in with it.

If there was any doubt if Richard Ashcroft would be close to some of the other headliners that we’ve had at The Piece Hall over the last two months, he certainly smashed that idea out of the park – and way out of Yorkshire.

He was simply awesome, and then some. And as Richard Ashcroft tells us himself: Music is power. And tonight, that power was well and truly switched on.

Images: Cuffe & Taylor