Richard Ashcroft a limited number of appearances in 2003, Ashcroft was absent from the music business for about two years. He later explained this in 2006, stating that "[e]veryone got it into their heads over the last few years that I was in my ivory tower like Lennon, baking bread all day. The fact of the matter was that I was bringing up kids". Ashcroft began playing gigs again in mid-2005, and, on 2 July at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, Coldplay invited him to perform with them during their set. They performed The Verve's hit "Bitter Sweet Symphony", after
Neil Ashcroft Neil Ashcroft Neil William Ashcroft (born 27 November 1938 in London) is a British solid-state physicist. Ashcroft completed his undergraduate studies at the University of New Zealand (Bachelor 1958) received his PhD in 1964 from the University of Cambridge for research investigating the Fermi surfaces of metals. Following his PhD, Ashcroft completed postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago and at Cornell University, where he became a Professor in 1975. In 1990 he was named the Horace White Professor of Physics, and was elected to emeritus status in 2006. He served as the director for the Laboratory of Atomic and