Death of a rock band - Live review: Ash at Koko, Camden

There’s a curious feeling as you enter Koko on Thursday 5^th July. This is, after all, the penultimate gig of the four night stand at Koko by Ash – a band releasing their ‘final’ album this month. Of course, Ash are set to release singles online after saying the album as a format is dead, but you can’t help imagining this as some kind of farewell fuck to nineties indie. The smoking ban unmasks the hideous blend of booze, bleach and sweat in Koko previously hidden by fags. In short, the gig resembles a funeral and smells like someone has actually died. When the spotlight falls on Ash, things don’t improve.

On stage, Ash as a three-piece look like a vacant triangle of flustered and frustrated musos, lacking Charlotte Hatherly and the famous machine gun guitar spunk that made them in the first place. Tim Wheeler stands at stage left, leaving the centre stage hollow, clutching his flying V guitar and remaining largely silent. He’s intent on giving the hardcore fans as many songs as possible. Cheers only come when classic tracks from the first album are played. When Ash arrived in 1996, they were younger than the Arctic Monkeys and, sadly, they’ve never been able to escape being youngsters in the heads of everyone. This is partly down to the fact that they refuse to dress in clothes made after ’96 and still behave like students and not rock stars. Striding across the stage instead of jumping around with mad, crazy, drug fuelled energy, Tim Wheeler looks like your dad in a tribute band. The cover of Teenage Kicks is as ironic as it gets, but Ash don’t get it. Still, it’ll go down well on the inevitable tour of University Balls over the next few years…