Ash come on to a much smaller crowd than Blondie the night before – Ash deserved to make it big. They paid their dues. They do what it says on the tin. Then they do it again. Today they’re a bit like ZZ Top with a clean shave and more imaginative drumming. New song ‘Ichiban’ is excellent. At one point Tim Wheeler encourages the crowd to sing along. This causes four or five citizens such as the Ireland enthusiast next to me (I could tell he was an enthusiast because he had the word ‘Ireland’ tattooed on both arms) to mumble ‘point of no return, burn baby burn’ several times. Try working that into your next conversation.
A rock guitarist plays three chords to thousands of people. With a jazz guitarist it’s the other way round. The Dandy Warhols know lots of chords. And words. They wheel out ‘Welcome To The Monkey House’, ‘The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone’ and ‘Horse Pills’ – but those words were inaudible. Their hit single (the Vodafone one) went down a bomb. But as the policeman said when I asked him how he was enjoying Iggy recently, ‘not my cup of tea, sir’.