Richard Ashcroft Returns Home for a Magical Night at Manchester’s AO Arena [Photos]

Wigan-born Richard Ashcroft doesn’t do massive tours, so when he does set foot on stage, they’re guaranteed to be special nights. Unsurprisingly, there is an added magical air about the room when he arrives home in Manchester for what is probably the closest he’ll get to a hometown gig these days.

Liverpudlian Jamie Webster has the challenging task of opening for Ashcroft in front of what you would expect to be a particular hardcore crowd. A now familiar chant of “Fuck The Tories” rings out around the hall as Webster steps out, announcing, “there will be plenty of time for that later on.” Based just down the M62, Webster acknowledges the crowd, which does have plenty of pockets of Webster fans, joking, “thanks for coming to check me out; I’m absolutely shitting myself up here.” Surely a reference to the age-old rivalry between Liverpudlians and Mancunians.

With plenty of sold-out gigs of his own under his belt, Webster’s songs are gritty and clearly draw inspiration from growing up on the hard streets of Liverpool. “This one’s about the prison system,” announces Webster as a precursor to “Davey Kane” and, on the evidence of the Manchester crowd singing along with him, his earlier statement that “he would have to get used to crowds like this” might come sooner than he imagined.

For Richard Ashcroft, though, crowds like this are the norm. A packed-out AO Arena saw a raft of friends and family join the fifteen thousand plus fans in attendance, and, as he walked out onto the stage at just after 9 o’clock, he was greeted like a returning hero. The next seventy-five minutes saw Ashcroft delve into his immense back catalogue, kicking off with “Surprised by the Joy.”

“Sonnet” is next up, and Ashcroft stands, arms-folded, head back soaking up the incredible atmosphere around the Arena. A set packed with solo material, including “C’Mon People (We’re Making It Now)” and “Music Is Power,” there isn’t a person in the room not singing along. Alongside the solo material, the set saw Ashcroft dive back into The Verve’s mega-selling album Urban Hymns for genre-defining anthems like “The Drugs Don’t Work” and night closer “Bittersweet Symphony.”

People often criticize the music industry for churning out artists with no heart or soul, and those people are correct. However, watching this Wigan songwriter performing with so much emotion, soul and heart, there clearly are exceptions to that rule, of which Ashcroft is one. Watching an earlier interview with Ashcroft, the songwriter stated how lucky he felt to have such a connection with his fans. Watching 15,000 people singing every word to every song, that connection is very obvious. Still, it leaves you wondering who this magical night was more special for – Ashcroft or the 15,000 people lucky enough to have landed a much sought-after ticket.

Richard Ashcroft (w/ Jamie Webster) @ AO Arena (Manchester, UK) on October 14, 2022

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