How Bittersweet It Is

The audience would probably have understood if the Verve, one of the great rock bands of the ‘90s, had spent its entire time on stage Friday at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim just playing and replaying one song.

The melancholy “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is not only one of the most alluring singles in years, it is also a record that defines the status of a quintet whose future is very much in question.

Because guitarist Nick McCabe refused to join the band on its current tour, he may well have reopened the wounds between himself and singer Richard Ashcroft that led to the breakup of the Verve once before.

After two more U.S. stops, the group returns home to England for three festival dates before sitting down to decide its future. If relations with McCabe can’t be mended, the band could recruit another guitarist, or call it quits, with Ashcroft embarking on a solo career.

“I really don’t know what is going to happen,” the Verve’s manager Jazz Summers said backstage prior to Friday’s frequently galvanizing concert. “They are just focusing on these gigs now. I don’t think anyone wants to make a decision until they get back home and some of the pressure is off them.”

When the Verve took the Pond stage, you wouldn’t have sensed that anything was wrong--except for the addition for the tour of a pedal steel guitarist and percussionist, and the fact that Ashcroft’s normally animated manner was restricted because he played electric guitar on several numbers.

Though the band’s leader is a man of few words between songs, he infuses his lyrics and melodies with a character and warmth that few rock songwriters approach. The ballad-oriented material acknowledges life’s frustrations and insecurities, but also conveys an unbending sense of optimism and faith.

Because “Symphony” has been a staple of rock radio for months, it’s easy for much of the pop world to think of the Verve as simply another in the current rash of one-hit wonders.

But on the band’s “Urban Hymns” album ,there are a half-dozen tracks, from the achingly personal “The Drugs Don’t Work” to the hauntingly beautiful “One Day,” that would be on every rock-station playlist in the country if the stations were concerned with musical quality rather than simply a record’s instant, novelty appeal.

Possibly because of McCabe’s absence, the Verve’s set seemed generally more mellow than last fall’s show at the Mayan Theatre, though it could also have been a reflection of the band’s own mood. The absence of rock aggression may be why the audience of about 8,500 seemed a bit uncommitted early on. Ultimately, however, the elegance of the music cast its spell.

The set also benefited near the end from a pair of songs that picked up the tempo. “Velvet Morning” has the raw, country edge of the Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed” period, while “Come On” is the Verve’s most vigorous rocker.

Still, it was “Symphony” that highlighted the evening. For all its emphasis on life’s hardships, “Symphony” is a song of survival. And Ashcroft sang the most optimistic lines with the urgency of someone who not only wrote the lines, but is now looking to them for hope.

Friday’s concert confirmed what the “Urban Hymns” album suggested: This is a band of rare imagination and heart. At a period when rock’s relevance and future are more in question than at any time since the early ‘60s, the music can ill afford to lose a group of this stature.