Pick a Day

Richard Ashcroft (lead singer for The Verve) is born in Billinge Higher End, Wigan, England.

The Verve perform in public for the first time, playing the Honeysuckle pub in Poolstock, near their hometown of Wigan, England.

The British band Verve, dispatched to America to promote their debut album, perform their song "A Man Called Sun" for over two hours from a flatbed truck driving around New York City at night. America takes little notice of the band until their 1997 single "Bitter Sweet Symphony."

At the Kansas City stop of Lollapalooza, where The Verve are the only British act on the bill, their frontman Richard Ashcroft collapses into convulsions and taken away in an ambulance after getting drunk with members of The Breeders and The Bad Seeds. That night, Verve drummer Pete Salisbury is arrested for destroying his hotel room. Says Ashcroft, "America nearly killed us."

Richard Ashcroft of The Verve marries Kate Radley of Spiritualized. They keep it quiet for two years, as Radley's bandmate, Jason Pierce, is also her ex-boyfriend.

In the UK, The Verve release "Bitter Sweet Symphony," which lives up to it's title: the song is a huge hit, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards end up getting credits and royalties.More

In Sheffield, England, The Verve play their first show since their breakup two years earlier. The following month, they release their album Urban Hymns, which becomes one of the most successful in UK history.

The Verve, which broke up just two years earlier, release their breakthrough album Urban Hymns. The album started as a solo project for frontman Richard Ashcroft, but ended up pulling the band back together.

On the UK albums chart, it's battling Britpop as The Verve's Urban Hymns knocks Oasis' Be Here Now out of #1.

Nike debuts its "I Can" commercial, introducing the British band The Verve to a wide American audience with the song "Bitter Sweet Symphony." The song becomes the band's only hit in the States, which is bittersweet because they had to sign away royalties to the song to get the publishing rights to the string sample.

Members of The Verve release a statement announcing their second breakup (their first was in 1995). The band reunites in 2007, but that only lasts two years.

In Glasgow, a reunited Verve play their first show since 1998. The band part ways again in 2009.

The Verve release Forth, their first album since Urban Hymns in 1997. It proves to be their last.