The thought of watching the makers of one of the best albums of this year is enough to lure us down the M62 on a freezing, early winter night, where Ash are in town to treat us to tunes from the Ad Astra record as well as their classics from the last 30-odd years (good grief, has it really been that long?)
But before all that there’s an additional treat for us this evening in the form of the support, Isle of Wight’s finest Coach Party, who are doing a few dates on the tour in support of their recently released second album Caramel. And whilst that record does not hit as consistently as the high quality watermark that was their 2023 debut Killjoy, they’ve always been a joy to watch live, and that’s enough to get us in early.
Starting their half an hour with the fizzing ‘Do It For Love‘, it’s a set made up mostly, understandably, from Caramel, but there’s a thundering ‘Parasite‘ from the debut with singer Jess doing her best to scream-along, even though she’s in the midst of a cold.
Recent single ‘Disco Dream‘ rattles along at quite the pace, with its catchy “Me, music, floor, lights” chorus, before they close with one of the singles of 2025, ‘Girls!‘, like a Run The World if Beyonce had liked shouty indie pop, it’s a splendid way to spend 30 minutes.
The interval sees us take in the wonder of the New Century Hall, one of this cities newer venues, it’s a wonderful room to experience live music, and it must be one of the bigger stage sizes that Ash are playing on this tour, as their backdrop looks teeny tiny here.
And at 9:00, along comes some wonderful live music to spoil us with, the three members of Ash strolling onstage to great applause from the busy Wednesday night audience and tonight’s gig opener ‘Zarathustra’ (better known as the old 2001: A Space Odyssey theme tune) is covered in respectful fashion as Ash are renowned for their love of sci-fi.
‘Fun People‘, and the album’s title track both feature Graham Coxon on the recorded versions and are dispatched early on here, with the latter giving frontman Tim Wheeler (surely the smilieist frontman in the biz) carte-blanche to go mad on his guitar.
There’s a massive cheer for the first oldie of the night, ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ before Wheeler thanks us for coming out on such a cold night and vowing “to warm us up“, which they do on a bone-crunching ‘Orpheus’ and rather like the band members themselves, the likes of ‘Goldfinger‘, (which celebrates it’s third decade) next year, haven’t aged a day. But it’s not all about the early stuff, the recent material on offer tonight is so strong that there’s no “new song lull” that you would normally get.
All the crowd favourites are present; there’s phones aloft for throaty crowd renditions of both ‘Shining Light‘ and the timeless ‘Oh Yeah‘, as well as some deeper cuts. It’s been a good while since ‘Lost In You‘ from their 1977 debut got an airing.
Main set closer ‘Kung Fu’ is typical of the set, more forceful and vibrant than they’ve been live for years. They are attacking each song with a new found love and purpose, on the back of the critical and commercial success of Ad Astra which seems to have really invigorated them, there’s a new spring in their collective step.
The encore sees a solo, acoustic performance of ‘My Favourite Ghost’ and a welcome return for overlooked banger single ‘Buzzkill’, before the closing riotous duo of ‘Girl From Mars‘ and ‘Burn Baby Burn‘, lapped up by their adoring public.
It would have been so easy for them to fall in the indie retro tour trap, doing just the early singles and albums to diminishing crowds, but by snubbing this lifestyle we are living through the renaissance of a beloved band which is a real joy to behold, like a phoenix rising from the Ash-es (sorry everyone).
(Photos: Cheryl Doherty)
