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If
you woke up this morning with your ears ringing, three stone lighter,
in need of a shower, your trainers stuck to your bedroom carpet, and
your index and little finger aching from some strange youth salute
(what is that all about?) - chances are you were at the Ash gig at
Northumbria Uni last night.
Chances are you had a wicked time, feeling it was well worth the wait
for the Irish four-piece's long awaited return to the North East.
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| They've
come a long way, baby! |
The
Crimea warmed up the venue in more ways than one. Hadn't heard anything
by them before, but was impressed by the music, jury is still out
on the vocals though.
The first song and the one that sounded a bit like REM's "It's
the End of the World" stood out as the best tracks.
Think we might hear a bit more from them in the future if the lead
singer's enthusiasm has anything to do with it.
His on-stage antics and album marketing skills to the departing
crowd certainly could not be questioned.
Perhaps Northumbria could invest in some curtains for the top windows
as I'm not sure many bands have performed inside in almost daylight,
which I think may have taken something away from their performance.
Feeling hot, hot, hot!
By
the time, Ash entered stage left, Northumbria Uni was already in
Meltdown (see what I've done there?) temperature-wise.
Early renditions of classics "Girl from Mars" and "A
Life Less Ordinary" soon got the crowd in spirits as high as
the temperature - you may have guessed it was very, very hot in
The Venue.
The set was an excellent blend of new and old, almost alternating
between the two, which seemed to hit the right nerve with a crowd
that could certainly be described as a mixed bag.
From Von Dutch cap-wearing teens, to mums with their kids, students
and the likes of me, who was listening to "1977" whilst
doing my GCSEs - the band have a huge appeal.
To
prove the Irish stereotype wrong, there wasn't much chat between
songs from frontman Tim Wheeler.
High-kicking
action
Instead, they bounced and strummed from one track to another, setting
a pace many of the crowd were struggling to keep up with. Towards
the end "Kung-Fu" kicked in to revitalise the flagging
fans.
As the main set ended, I thought the bloke in front of me was going
to do himself an injury as he leapt around with his, by then, already
battered air guitar, but hey, I'll let him off as the much anticipated
"Orpheus" sounded every bit as fantastic live, as hoped.
The
encore was then relatively mellow before the final track was announced
as "Fog on the Tyne" - I've heard that once too often
for it to be funny now.
Funnily enough it wasn't, and instead was a cracking crescendo of
"Burn Baby Burn" to draw out those final saps of energy
to end one heck of a night.
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