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home » festivals » Truck festival » Truck Festival 2009
Ash are a heart-warming and nostalgic headliner at TruckTruck Festival 2009 reviewWednesday 29th July 2009 Back outside, Ash, indie darlings for a sizeable chunk of the 1990s and now embarking on a plan to release 26 singles in the space of a year from a place back in the musical fringes, are about to begin their headline set on the Truck Stage. With the lovely Charlotte Hatherley now departed and concentrating on her own solo career, Ash are reinstalled as a three-piece and tonight they seem well focused, with the bit between their collective teeth, on producing a set overflowing with crowd-pleasing indie standards, infinitely likeable and plainly committed to putting on a good show at a festival they’ve never before played. Tim Wheeler, still looking as 17 as he did 15 years ago, takes the opening to the blissfully romantic and summery 'Walking Barefoot' from 2001's 'Free All Angels' alone, tenderly, before the band crash in to join him. Beautifully naïve with a typically fizzing, indulgent guitar riff, it's a winning start to the set. Without standing on ceremony, the Northern Irish band tear into 'Girl From Mars', an undisputed heavyweight champion of the indie disco. Of course, this is Ash and they milk the extended Weezer-referencing solo and lengthy breakdown in true 'Rawk' style before smashing their way wantonly back into a final chorus and getting a big response from a crowd, many of whom will be too young to remember the single being released back in 1996. The excellent 'A Life Less Ordinary' from the soundtrack to the film of the same name, follows and is ripped through with evident delight and vigour by Wheeler and co, who have really hit the ground running from the start of tonight's set and don't seem to be struggling to adapt to the Truck Stage's more modest environs at all. The chorus, with its desperate "Take me in your arms again" plea, is powered out amid relentless snare and strobe lighting and at the song's conclusion they're straight at it again, unleashing another 90s classic 'Goldfinger', from '1977'. The stage is bathed in yellow light as Wheeler unfolds his downbeat, yearning tale of teenage love and waiting alone for a loved one to arrive on a stormy night, having everyone in the audience who isn't young enough to be still having such angst-ridden experiences remembering the days when they were. New song 'Space Shot', one of the 26 singles, brings a temporary halt to the wave of momentum the band have built up. It has a romping Stonesy feel but is, sadly, ludicrously naff. More recent material follows in the shape of 'You Can't Have It All' before 'Wildsurf', from 'Nuclear Sounds', breaths life and urgency back into proceedings, as the centre of the stage breaks out in probing beams of red and white candy cane light. 'Oh Yeah' keeps the anthems count up, a wistful end-of-summer cousin to 'Girl From Mars' and 'Goldfinger', which always sounds perfect under a starry sky at a festival. Wheeler eeks out every last note of another of his most memorable and indulgent guitar solos and the crowd lap it up. The crowd-pleasing 'How to be a massive rock band by numbers' tactics that Ash have wheeled out on many a bigger stage than this over their lengthy career, are all present tonight and 'Kung Fu', initially savage and thrashy, is built into an epic, with audience handclaps, theatrical lighting flashes and a slow build into a final, vicious, chorus. 'Twilight Of The Innocents' sees the band in unfamiliar, reflective, darker territory with its poignant synth intro, which builds slowly into a soft-rock juggernaut, but they're back on safer ground with 'Shining Light', again performed solo by Wheeler for the first two verses before being carried off to yet another soaring, romantic chorus. They close with another new song 'Return Of The White Rabbit' before returning to kick off the encore with a huge, riotously brilliant attack on '1977's opening track 'Lose Control', Wheeler throwing out huge, screeching waves of wah-wah from his flying V and the band producing a massive, towering noise for a three-piece. The foot is kept firmly to the pedal with a joyful thrash through 'Jack Names The Planets', from debut mini-album 'Trailer', before they finish with a triumphant 'Burn Baby Burn' to a huge reception. Heart-warming, nostalgic and great fun. review by Gary Walker
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