I saw the Verve last night at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto. It may have been 10 years after the fact, but they were friggin awesome. The band came on late. The tickets said 8, yet it was about 9:10 before they hit the stage. Stu made an pretty astute observation, that more then likely the band was at the Toronto FC game happening about 100 metres away from the arena. Since they came onto the stage with TFC scarves it does add up. The band definitely hasn’t lost a step at all. Aside from Richard cutting his hair and Pete going bald it was practically like 1997 up in there. They played 2 new songs, Sit and Wonder, which was played in their UK dates late last year, and Modern Times, which debuted in San Francisco last week(if you want to check out that gig, it’s available for download on Waves and Wires). I think I can die happy now having seen a rawkus, jammy version of Come On. That was always probably my favourite track off of Urban Hymns. It closed out the set before the encore and was just fantastic. I had general admission floor tickets, so my legs are so tired today. One last note on the show, to the guy standing beside me who would say “another classic” whenever the band would play a track off of Urban Hymns, you sir are a douchebag. The band has 3(4 if you count the b-sides and rarities collection) albums. Urban Hymns was great and all, but they do have a buttload of awesome material.

Setlist
A New Decade
Sonnet
This is Music
Space and Time
Life’s An Ocean
History
Weeping Willow
Sit and Wonder
The Rolling People
Velvet Morning
The Drugs Don’t Work
Lucky Man
Come On
Encore
Bitter Sweet Symphony
Modern Times