Richard Ashcroft Owns the Night at Alexandra Palace
- Alan Bryce
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Alexandra Palace – 17th July 2026
WORDS / IMAGES ALAN BRYCE
There are gigs, and then there are gatherings of the faithful. Richard Ashcroft's show at Alexandra Palace on 17 July felt very much like the latter: thousands of people climbing the hill carrying their own private histories, all of them tied in one way or another to songs that have soundtracked heartbreaks, road trips, break-ups, reconciliations and moments of solitary transcendence. By the end of the night, Ally Pally had become less a concert venue than a giant communal pulse.
The evening opened with CAST, and they came on like men determined to remind everyone exactly why they mattered in the first place. John Power remains one of the great underrated frontmen of his generation, still possessing that weathered charisma that can make a simple chord progression feel like a statement of intent. Their set, built around classics such as Sandstorm, Finetime, Walkaway and the inevitable Alright, was delivered with an absence of pretension that felt refreshing. These songs have aged beautifully because they're rooted in real emotion rather than fashion. Watching CAST tear through them on a warm summer evening was like hearing a stack of beloved singles broadcast from some idealised version of the 1990s. The crowd responded in kind, singing along to every familiar chorus and treating the band less as support than returning heroes.
The Lathums followed and injected the day with a different kind of energy. Where CAST lean into seasoned confidence, The Lathums possess that restless youthful urgency that reminds you why guitar bands still matter. Their set moved through fan favourites including Circles Of Faith, Stellar Cast, I Know That Much, Vice Versa and Sad Face Baby, each one delivered with sincerity and conviction. Alex Moore remains an incredibly engaging frontman, his voice carrying a vulnerability that cuts straight through the noise. The band managed the difficult task of connecting with an audience that hadn't necessarily arrived for them, steadily winning people over song by song until huge sections of the crowd were singing along. By the time they left the stage, they'd done exactly what a great support act should do: they made new believers.
Then came Ashcroft.
What struck me most wasn't simply the quality of the songs, although the quality remains absurd, but the sense that this music still means something profound both to the performer and to the audience. There are certain concerts where the boundary between stage and crowd seems to disappear, where every lyric carries decades of memories and every chorus feels shared rather than performed. That was the atmosphere hanging over Alexandra Palace throughout Ashcroft's set. He wasn't just playing songs; he was tapping into a deep emotional connection that has only grown stronger with time, creating the kind of night where thousands of people seemed to be experiencing the same feeling all at once.
He emerged to a roar and immediately began peeling back the years. Sporting a bucket hat that once felt part of the uniform for a generation of Britpop and Verve devotees, Ashcroft moved with the easy confidence of someone who has spent decades commanding stages. He barely had to say a word to establish a connection with the crowd.
Sonnet opened the set and was greeted like a national anthem, thousands of voices turning one of The Verve's most beautiful songs into something even larger. Looking around, it was impossible not to notice how many generations of fans were singing every word together. Weeping Willow followed, carrying all the nervous kinetic energy that made it such a standout in the band's catalogue, before Space and Time transformed the vast field into something oddly intimate. Despite the scale of the occasion, Ashcroft has a rare ability to make songs feel personal, as though they're being sung directly to each individual listener.
One of the evening's more unexpected moments came with Music Is Power, dedicated to Jude Bellingham. The performance transformed an already uplifting song into an expression of faith. Faith in talent, ambition and possibility. Hearing it ring out across Alexandra Palace felt genuinely inspiring rather than sentimental.
One of the most striking things about the performance was Ashcroft's voice. Time has given it extra texture and weight, but it remains a remarkable instrument, capable of soaring above the band one moment and sounding almost conversational the next. Throughout the evening he stalked the stage with a mixture of swagger and gratitude, clearly aware that these songs have become part of people's lives in ways few artists ever experience.
The solo material never suffered in comparison to the Verve classics. A Song For The Lovers sounded enormous, one of those songs seemingly engineered to echo across summer skies. Break The Night With Colour brought a surge of euphoria through the crowd and served as a reminder that Ashcroft's post-Verve output contains songs capable of standing alongside his most celebrated work.
Yet the emotional centre of the evening remained tied to The Verve. Ashcroft wisely understood that these songs are woven into the lives of everyone present. History was magnificent, reflective and yearning, while The Drugs Don't Work brought the entire crowd together in a singalong that bordered on cathartic. All around me people stopped filming, stopped talking and simply sang. The song seemed to float over the city below, carrying with it every memory that listeners had attached to it across nearly three decades. It was one of those rare live moments when a song ceases to belong to the artist who wrote it and becomes something shared by everybody hearing it.
Then came Lucky Man, perhaps the definitive Ashcroft statement. By this point, Alexandra Palace was completely in his hands. Thousands sang along to every line, turning the song into a shared declaration of gratitude, resilience and wonder. It's one of those rare songs that grows more meaningful with age, and hearing it echo across the hill as the sun began to fade felt nothing short of magical. What once sounded like youthful optimism now carries the wisdom of experience, and Ashcroft delivered it with the conviction of someone who still believes every word.
After a brief departure, Ashcroft returned for an encore that perfectly captured the evening's spirit. C'Mon People (We're Making It Now) appeared less as a song than a declaration, its message of perseverance and collective hope landing with remarkable force in front of a crowd eager to believe in it.
And then, inevitably, came Bitter Sweet Symphony.
Some songs escape the boundaries of popular music and become part of the culture itself. Bitter Sweet Symphony crossed that line years ago. The moment the opening strings appeared, Alexandra Palace erupted. The roar that greeted those first notes was unlike anything else all night. Suddenly everyone was singing, not just along, but into the song, as if staking a claim on it. For six glorious minutes the crowd became one enormous choir celebrating survival, resilience and the strange beauty of carrying on despite everything. The song's famous refrain felt especially powerful in that setting, sweeping across the hilltop and out into the London skyline beyond. It wasn't simply the climax of the concert; it was the culmination of decades of shared history between these songs and the people who love them.
As the final notes disappeared into the London night, it was impossible not to feel moved by what had just happened. Richard Ashcroft isn't simply trading on nostalgia. He remains one of the last genuine rock mystics Britain has produced, a songwriter capable of finding grandeur in ordinary lives and transcendence in everyday struggles. On 17 July at Alexandra Palace, he gave the faithful exactly what they came for: all the great songs from The Verve, the solo favourites that have become classics in their own right, and, perhaps most importantly, a reminder that music can still make thousands of strangers feel connected.
For one summer night on a hill overlooking London, that was more than enough.
SET LIST
Sonnet (The Verve song)
Weeping Willow (The Verve Song)
Space and Time (The Verve Song)
Music is Power (dedicated to Jude Bellingham)
A Song For The Lovers
Break The Night With Colour
History (The Verve song)
The Drugs Don’t Work (The Verve song)
Lucky Man (The Verve song)
ENCORE
C’Mon People (We’re Making It Now)
Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve song)
FOLLOW RICHARD ASHCROFT
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