Ash

Sod Oil of Olay, Yakultk and wheatgrass, the way to stay young is to front an energetic pop rock band for 18 years. Ash frontman, Tim Wheeler, must be cryogenically frozen and wheeled (see what I did there?) in his mobile fridge to every show. Leading the band onstage after an admittedly stilted and cliched launch countdown he appears as fresh faced and smiling as he did when he was covered in paint and singing in a desert. Opening by tearing up that pretty, ivory white SG of his with the intro octave shred to 'Loose Control' on a Tuesday night is the equivalent of chucking a flash grenade into a room full of sleeping people. It takes a little while for those in the room to wake up and realise just what it is that's going on. Applause was certainly not lacking in it's approval but during 'A Life Less Ordinary', the room was still stagnant in it's physical responses. It was not until the fourth song of the two hour set, 'Goldfinger', (also from Ash's debut album '1977') that the sporadic bouncing began to meld into a cohesive whole.

Previously, when my photographer asked the barman for the time the band were coming onstage, he stated, to our surprise, that Ash would be playing a two hour set starting at roughly half past eight /quarter to nine and ending at about quarter to eleven. I obviously forgot the multitude of tracks that are being produced through the 'A-Z, Volume 1' series of singles or the other five albums and and E.P. in the catacombs of their healthy back catalogue.



The core line-up of Wheeler, Mark Hamilton (Bass) and Rick McMurray (drums) has stayed the same since 1992. For sticking together nigh on twenty years they ought to be commended, but for being able to still exude as much energy as a band on their first big tour, they ought to be given a gold medal in 'Longevity Rocking'. Adding some guitars and synth on this tour was Russell Lissack, of Bloc Party fame, who should be no stranger to the material given that he was reportedly in an Ash tribute band early in his career.

There was an, 'old song here, new song there' vibe to the set list. Balanced so as not to alienate older fans from the newer material and to hold of the audience as a whole interested through more electronica inspired tracks like 'Neon' and 'Arcadia'. The material sounds sounds like a band realising that it's time to shake things up a little and being revitalised by the experimentation. That is not to say that the newer songs are self indulgent, far from it. They are variants of the innate charm Ash have possessed and expressed all along. From 'Jack Names The Planets' to 'Shining Light' the band expertly craft innocence and naivety into heart warming, pogo-inducing gems.



Other old favourites gathered in a sweet spot towards the end of the set proper, 'Oh Yeah', 'Angel Interceptor' and 'Kung Fu', regressed me 13 years to when Manga Video still released serialised cassettes and Eric Cantona laid the Hong Kong Phooey on Matthew Simmons. There was even a complete surprise in the form a cover of Weezer's epic 'Only In Dreams', which was just as soaring as the original at it's loudest and as delicate at it's most quiet. It was during 'Girl From Mars' and 'Angel Interceptor' that Wheeler decided to remind us all that he is possibly the most underrated guitarist of his generation. While Noel Gallagher was spinning pentatonic cut and paste licks in Guitarist Magazine's Top 100, Wheeler was rocking out with twin guitar harmonies in melodic, aeolian tap frenzies, all for the betterment of the song than for the sake of a solo without any of the recognition.... Soapbox rant over.

When Hamilton's bass lead gave up the ghost we were also treated to a two verse impromptu cover of 'Teenage Kicks', soloed by Wheeler, making the save from the malign dead air. The band are aware of how imperative it is to keep the energy flowing in a set like this and capped the whole night off beautifully with and electric 'Burn Baby Burn', in a perfect summation of the proceedings.

In terms of acts, it may be easy to exalt the new rather than revere the old, but Ash are proving that they are as relevant as ever to mainstream British pop. Even though they are almost double the age they were when they arrived on the scene.

FUTURE GIGS

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