If someone had bet you three years ago that Wigan band The Verve would one day be the biggest band in Britain and would be headlining a massive concert in Slane Castle, you would probably have laughed so much you would hardly have been able to reach into your pocket to pull out your wallet.
In 1995 The Verve were anything but a sure thing, and the idea of them becoming superstars was as preposterous as, well, Robbie Williams becoming the most successful solo ex-member of Take That. The odds were against The Verve all the way: they didn't have the accessible anthems of Oasis nor the ferocious energy of The Prodigy; their shimmering, ethereal sound was too insubstantial for solid radio play; and their trippy live shows were too loose and organic for middle class audience comfort. Add the wild card - Richard Ashcroft, who soon attracted the adjective "mad" - to the pack and you had a deck that was loaded in favour of early burnout and drug-fuelled disarray.
Your wager would have seemed secure when in August 1995 The Verve did indeed collapse in chaos following the release of their second album, A Northern Soul. The split didn't make front page news - after all, Ashcroft and his pals were still a cult indie band, while Oasis were about to release their multi-million selling What's The Story (Morning Glory?).
The music press was more interested in the antics of Liam Gallagher than in the rock 'n' roll vision of a gangly dreamer who looked like a young Mick Jagger. And fans were too busy singing along with Wonderwall to pay any attention to The Verve's valedictory single, History. While Oasis grabbed the headlines, the Wigan weirdos seemed destined to become just another footnote in rock history.
By now, of course, you would have lost your bet. This year The Verve are the big cheeses on the rock 'n' roll block. Urban Hymns has left Oasis's Be Here Now in the ha'penny place and Bitter Sweet Symphony still reverberates through the ether like an ever-repeating echo. Ashcroft is no longer nicknamed "Mad" Richard, thanks to the focused, single-minded ambition which has helped him lead his band back from the brink and straight to the top of the rockpile. Urban Hymns has so far sold five million copies, and this summer the band played a triumphant homecoming gig at Wigan's Haigh Hall in front of 33,000 fans, just a bus ride away from the Honeysuckle pub where the band made its inauspicious debut in 1990.
When The Verve were added to the bill at this year's V98 Festival in Chelmsford and Leeds, tickets were the fastest-selling in the festival's history. And their concert in Slane Castle on Saturday 29th is doing quite nicely thank you, even though 16,000 people already saw the band at The Point earlier this summer.
How quickly things change. And how unexpectedly history repeats itself. Just a couple of weeks ago the news broke that guitarist Nick McCabe was opting out of the band's live dates for the rest of the year due to the stresses and strains of touring. The announcement came just as The Verve were preparing for their US tour, which was supposed to mark their big breakthrough into the American market. The music press is now smouldering with fevered speculation about the future of The Verve; rumours of a permanent split are rife, and it's widely speculated that their Slane Castle appearance on August 29th will be their last gig.
McCabe is said to be the musical backbone of The Verve and Ashcroft has admitted the band couldn't be The Verve without McCabe. The pair were close friends at school and their contrasting personalities - McCabe introverted and thoughtful, Ashcroft cocksure and confident - made for a volatile creative balance. When the band had its first break-up in 1995 it was largely blamed on the shaky relationship between Ashcroft and McCabe, although gruelling tour schedules and the rock 'n' roll lifestyle may also have contributed to the split.
When Ashcroft reconvened the band for the recording of Urban Hymns he realised the sound wasn't complete without McCabe's guitar playing, and so he swallowed his pride and invited his estranged pal to return to the fold. This time round it is not known if McCabe will return to work with The Verve after their current tour commitments have ended, but some insiders are expressing doubt that the band will carry on past 1998. After numerous false starts, one near-catastrophic break-up and one of the most spectacular resurrections in rock, The Verve are standing on the brink once again and their bitter sweet symphony could finally be reaching its coda.
But don't strike up the funeral march just yet. It's still business as usual for the four remaining members of The Verve and the band's US tour opened in Chicago on July 28th, accompanied by intense media interest and a good dollop of old-fashioned rock 'n' roll fever. The concert, in the 4,500 seater Aragon Ballroom, had been moved from the 14,000 seater Rosemont Horizon due to poor ticket sales and dates originally scheduled for New York's Madison Square Gardens and Seattle's Key Arena have also been downsized. But though The Verve may have overestimated their popularity in the US, they are still comfortably selling out 4,000 to 5,000 seater venues and the fans are reported to be largely unconcerned by the absence of McCabe.
The band has drafted in veteran pedal steel player B.J. Cole and percussionist Steve Sidelnyk for the remaining 1998 dates and the dynamics of their sound are said to have changed accordingly. A review of the Chicago concert by NME's Mat Smith concludes that, although the band sounded patchy at times, the show had its fair share of highlights and emotional highs. The band came onstage, appropriately enough, to the strains of Jimmy Cliff's Many Rivers To Cross and performed a set culled mostly from Urban Hymns, beginning with Space And Time and continuing through an extended, improvised This Time and a poignant, pedal steel-drenched The Drugs Don't Work. "I hope that the people who've seen us before think that we're doing these songs justice," Ashcroft is reported to have told the audience.
When The Verve arrive at Slane, they won't have to fight for our hearts and minds, but they will have to prove themselves up to the challenge of creating the magic without their guitar-wielding wizard, McCabe. With Ashcroft in his enigmatic prime, the singer should have no problem taking the crowd into another place and time and with the strong supporting line-up of Robbie Williams, Manic Street Preachers, Finley Quaye, James and The Seahorses, Ashcroft won't exactly be carrying the entire weight of Slane Castle on his shoulders. At worst, The Verve's performance may have a few sonic gaps and maybe the odd feeling of something missing, but at its best it could be the culmination of a brilliant, eventful pop career.
Nobody knows if The Verve will break up after Slane, but no-one can dismiss the band's proven ability to return from the void and get rock 'n' roll's heart beating once more. Amid the rumours of the band's demise are also whispers that they're working on the follow-up to Urban Hymns and that Virgin have given them millions of pounds in advances towards their next three albums. But if the break-up talk turns out to be true, and Slane Castle does indeed prove to be The Verve's swansong, then it's more important than ever to be there now and share in a bitter sweet piece of history.
