Richard Ashcroft

Minutes before Richard starts a huge snake of paper pint glasses winds it’s way through the crowd – someone’s drunk a lot of weak lager! “Bring the boys home Tony, bring the boys home” commands Mr Ashcroft shoes in hands aloft and his political ramblings continue through out the set. “Love and Peace.” He adds, before the opening song, ‘Keys to the World.’ The arena is crowded but rather quiet for this one, clearly less people bought Richard’s latest album of the same name, but it’s life affirming, pleasant and feel good.

On the other hand ‘Lucky Man’ has the huge throng in front of the stage with their arms aloft too as the sun starts to set. There’s flags waving and everyone is smiling as sunflowers bounce golden light over the crowd and Richard’s face beams from behind those sunglasses too. We all join in the singing and it’s one of those IOW moments that this weekend has been rather short on this year.

‘The Science of Silence’ should have everyone’s lighters in the air but the sky is too light so it’s mobile phones instead! A record written for festival crowds to sing along too, and sure enough they do. The backing band are quiet for the next one as Richard checks his mic and dons an acoustic guitar for the anthem that is ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ and it’s a hugely powerful song there’s no denying even without instrumentation.

‘Music Is Power’ feels hollow by comparison but it can’t be easy to follow such a big tune. ‘New York’ follows before Richard breaks into more anti-war sentiment with a reworking of Country Joe’s ‘Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag’ the anti war song.

Ashcroft leads the word changes now about Iraq into ‘Words’ and he suggests we don’t vote Cameron, or Blair, or anyone, and lambastes politicians and says he never wanted to go to Number 10 and meet Tony and regrets going. ‘Why Not Nothing’ is a bit of a filler track but nicely crafted and then Richard has a bit of a rant and we all play with the bouncing giant beach balls, share a joke and a drink and pretty much ignore him on the whole.

‘Break the Night’ snaps us back to singing mode and a bit of arms in the air swaying, well you can’t dance to it and finally as the sun sets the biggest tune he’s ever likely to write issues forth, the thumpingly good ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ which is unforgettable for anyone witnessing Wigan’s finest. What an ending and as night falls we’ve got grins a mile wide.

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