ash. live.

who: ash

when: 23 october 2011

where: hmv ritz, manchester, uk

support: the virginmarys, futures

when my friend jo asked me if i wanted to come along to the ash concert in manchester, i said yes without actually knowing what i had said yes to. i didn´t bother checking them out either because i thought i might as well let them surprise me instead. the only thing jo told me was that ash were big in the late 90s. i´ve heard of them before but wasn´t really familiar with their music. so yes, i had absolutely no idea what i agreed to and that night sure was not really what i thought it was going to be.

after an hour of queuing in the freezing cold outside of the hmv ritz, the doors finally opened around 7 pm. we went in and managed to get a front row spot pretty much right in front of the middle of the stage. everything seemed ok, except for the floors. it felt like our shoes were glued to the floor. someone please clean the floors before i´m back in february. sorry, but it had to be said.

up first were the virginmarys, a 3-piece rock band from macclesfield. despite the fact that the beatles is the favourite band of two band members, their sound certainly isn´t anything like that. the virginmarys have this irresistible 90s charme that only nirvana had. and in fact, their sound is similar to nirvana. especially bassist matt rose reminded me a lot of the grunge rock era of the early 90s and lead singer ally dickaty delivered the fitting guitar sounds. but drummer danny dolan impressed me the most. i don´t think i´ve ever seen anyone so full of energy while playing an instrument. what he delivered during their set was simply brilliant. hands down for that. there was quite a bit of singing going on in the audience as well, so i guess there were probably some people who were only there to see them. if you are a fan of nirvana or skin yard - do yourself a favour and check out the virginmarys.

 danny dolan (drums) and matt rose (bass) of the virginmarys

 matt dickaty of the virginmarys

the second support act was futures. originally a 4-piece indie-rock (if you ask me) band, they were temporarily joined by two more gentlemen on stage. admitting that their music was more the kind of thing that i usually listen to, they didn´t win me over. with some songs being more rock while others were more indie-pop, their set was certainly varied but that was about it. maybe it was just bad luck that they had to follow the virginmarys, i´m not quite sure. will have to check out more in order to make up my mind.

 lead singer of futures

by the time ash, including charlotte hatherley, finally came on stage, the nicest security guy ever already gave us the drumsticks from the virginmarys, my ears were basically already bleeding and i had a bad (or good?) feeling that this sure wasn´t it yet. a few minutes later, i was proved right.

the tour was basically called “´free all angels´ plus hits”, so as expected ash performed the entire number one album “free all angels”, while “burn baby burn” seemed to be everyone´s favourite. the moshing was still at a minimum at that point but of course it didn´t continue like this.

when people try to categorise ash and their music, people often describe them as a mix between indie-rock and punk, and i think i agree. again, their sound isn´t really the kind of thing you´d find on my ipod but i was positively surprised. after playing “free all angels” (which is a 13 track long album), they left the stage only to come back and perform an 8 (!) song encore. now that´s certainly something you don´t find every day. and as if this wasn´t enough, after leaving the stage a second time, they played another 2 song encore which brings their set to a whopping 23 songs.

people went absolutely crazy pretty much during the entire show. our front row spot was probably not the best one if you wanted to avoid the serious moshing (my arms still hurt almost a week later) and people actually yelling (not singing) the song lyrics in your ears, but i guess that was part of the charm of the night and definitely an experience.

tim wheeler´s energetic vocals, mark hamilton´s unique bass play and charlotte hatherley´s stunning backing vocals and amazing guitar sounds mixed with rick mcmurray´s simply astonishing drums, made this night an extremely loud one. nevertheless the high volume of their music did not overshadow the well-structured compositions. they certainly have my respect for putting on one hell of a show, especially the rhythm section – they absolutely killed it.

i came with no expectations and left with a valuable lesson learned: never judge too quickly, even if you think the music might not be something you´d like.

 charlotte hatherley

mark hamilton

tim wheeler

*photos of ash and futures were taken in manchester,  

photos of the virginmarys were taken in bristol (thanks to jo)*