Photo courtesy of Dave Roffey

Armies of cagoule-clad, Kappa hat-wearing, feather-cutted young men forcefully take their place in front of the Eden stage early on. The night is still young and it’s pissing down. Can you ever imagine The Ting Tings commanding this sort of attention?

Anyway, onto the show. We’d love to say that the support act was a revelation…infinitely trashy...wildly disrespectful...punching with life/tunes/vigour, but...there was no support act. Let’s just guess that’s down to stipulations in The Verve’s contract (‘NO OTHER BANDS SHALL BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO OUTPERFORM WIGAN’S FINEST’), because all the other Sessions have had stellar opening acts. Instead, The Verve bring along a DJ who plays ESG and a load of other tunes that no one really listens to.

Never mind though, because at the unholy time of 9:20pm the band takes to the stage. The crowd goes wild; cagoules are thrown and one punter even fires what appears to be a condom into the sky. Richard Ashcroft, waltzing onstage last, is doing ‘the walk’ (the same one as Liam G and Ian B) – part frog-leap, part Mr Soft, and he totally means it. Even with 20 gazillion in the bank and three awful solo albums behind him, ‘Mad’ Richard still wants the audience to love him. And love him they do.

He’s got personal business with Cornwall – The Verve’s debut album A Storm In Heaven was recorded at Sawmills, while family connections led to him writing and demoing a bunch of material down here in the wake of the band’s initial split in the mid-1990s (material that would eventually appear on 1997’s era-defining Urban Hymns, no less). So it’s no surprise when he starts giving shout-outs to “pasty pies”, the coast around Rock and the county itself (“Still building that wall are ya?!” he quips at one point). It’s all done with the sweetest of intentions, and really, it’s this kind of thing that makes the band special. They have personality. Not just in the music, but in Ashcroft’s moves and lingo too, and it elevates them.

In the absence of any real crowd humility, Dickie & co can’t really go wrong: just play the tunes and you’ll be fine, boys. So we get a roll-call of pretty much all the favourites and a smattering of new songs. But the dilemma The Verve must constantly be faced with these days is whether to pander to their mainstream successes (Urban Hymns’ gentile, orchestral-led musings) or just stick with the tunes they always seemed more comfortable playing (the 12-minute groove-laden wig-outs that peppered their early material).

Tonight, they lean slightly more towards the pre-1997 stuff, and when it’s good, they’re great. Opener ‘A New Decade’ sounds as vital now as it did on 1995’s A Northern Soul, but ‘Life's An Ocean’, from the same album, drags and loses the crowd completely. No matter though, because the likes of ‘Sonnet’, ‘Lucky Man’ and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ are tailor-made for these situations: lighters and mobiles are thrust skywards for their duration. You can’t help but wish that every song was universal enough to garner the same reception.

Erratic guitarist Nick McCabe is on brilliant form throughout, but things take a sour turn towards the end of the gig when – for reasons unknown – he downs his instrument mid-song and stroppily walks offstage. It’s hardly Johnny Rotten at Winterland (indeed, some of the crowd seem completely oblivious to McCabe’s exit), but clearly, The Verve are not a stable ship at present.

To make matters worse, the band carry on as if nothing’s happened. Ashcroft, you feel, could hardly care less, while bassist Simon Jones simply shrugs his shoulders towards drummer Peter Salisbury. It all goes a bit limp for a few minutes, until McCabe hops back onstage. He’s not sheepish, he’s not humble, he’s not defiant. He doesn’t say a word. He just picks up his guitar and extracts from it the most ear-piercing feedback we’ve heard since we were 13 and running wild in a guitar shop.

Is he doing it to take the piss? Or is it part of the act? Who knows, but the squeals and shrieks last for what seems like an eternity. We’re saved – eventually – by the familiar tones of Andrew Loog Oldham’s ‘The Last Time’ (aka ‘Bittersweet Symphony’), and all hell breaks loose. Aside from Der Gallagher’s ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’, has there been a better protest lyric in the last 20 years than “you try to make ends meet, you’re a slave to money then you die”? If so, we’re all ears.

Ashcroft sings the line tonight like his life depends on it, and as the song segues into epic newie ‘Love Is Noise’ you can’t help but realise that, actually, he is a worthy messiah to guitar-worshipping indie fans the world over. No matter how much shit is thrown at the frontman – bad reviews, stroppy guitarists, addiction, family problems, lawyers, band tensions – you can always count on him to come up with something special. Even if it is in meagre doses. (Matt Wilkinson)