TORONTO -- For anyone who remains capable of finding themselves engaged in long, passionate dialogues about the meaning of pop music, there's still nothing quite like the feeling of being in a packed-and-then-some room of people, all of whom share an almost palpable yearning to experience something beyond the narrow emotional parameters of a typical rock concert.
Such was the atmosphere that surrounded Tuesday night's show here by The Verve.
Playing their lone Canadian date of 1997 to 1200 or so fans at The Phoenix, Britpop's most vital band put on exactly the kind of show you'd expect from an act that is, by every measure, THE cool band of the moment.
From tales of harried record-company types being swamped with ticket requests, to the scalpers outside who were asking 150 bucks for an $18.50 ticket -- and GETTING it -- the evening had the feel of a genuine Event.
Of course, that scenario invariably means that a good deal of the crowd is there to be seen, rather than to see, and that was clearly the case Tuesday night.
Though the die-hard fans jammed up at the front let themselves go for the full 95 minutes, there seemed to be vast cliques of curiosity-seekers who couldn't be bothered expending the energy required to take their hands out of their pockets and clap them together.
In other words, a typical Toronto audience.
Despite the intimate confines, The Verve are clearly not inclined to think small.
From the computerized laser-light show, to the roof-raising sound system, to the video screens that flanked the front, back, and side of the venue, this was essentially a stadium show in a club.
Imagine seeing, say, U2's Zoo TV tour at the El Mocambo, and you've got the general idea of what went on.
Opening with a swaggering version of "A New Decade" from 1995's "A Northern Soul" album, the band -- frontman Richard Ashcroft, guitar foil Nick McCabe, rhythm section Simon Jones (bass) and Peter Salisbury (drums), and new guy Simon Tong (keyboards, guitar) -- The Verve expertly treaded the fine line between trying too hard and appearing too cool to look like they were trying at all.
While Ashcroft's voice is already showing the effects of a gruelling road schedule, most of the evening's highlights revolved around that particular instrument. There was a mournful take on "The Drugs Don't Work", which featured Ashcroft standing at the intersection of two red spotlights and taking the song at an even slower pace than on the new "Urban Hymns" album.
There was "Bitter Sweet Symphony" -- surely one of the most unlikely hit singles of this decade -- which augmented the elegance of the recorded version with an explosive crescendo at the end.
And, most of all, there was Ashcroft alone on stage, strumming an acoustic guitar and delivering a powerful version of "On Your Own", even if he didn't even try to hit the song's falsetto notes.
Just before introducing the 15th and final number of the night, an extended, bug-eyed romp through "Come On", Ashcroft said he'd be seeing us again next year. (A Virgin Music spokesperson confirmed that The Verve plans to return to Canada and the U.S. in the spring of 1998).
Even if those shows turn out to be as affecting as the one we just witnessed, The Verve will be hard-pressed to duplicate the intangible atmosphere that made Tuesday's show so special.
Like it or not, a unique moment in The Verve's history has now come and gone. Count yourself lucky if you were there to mark its passing.
SET LIST:
1. A New Decade
2. Catching The Butterfly
3. This Is Music
4. Weeping Willow
5. Slide Away
6. Sonnet
7. The Drugs Don't Work
8. The Rolling People
9. Life's An Ocean
10. Bitter Sweet Symphony
11. Stormy Clouds (Reprise)
ENCORE:
12. On Your Own
13. Lucky Man
14. History
15. Come On
