Ash

8th October 2025 at Circuit, Kingston

Ash have just released their ninth studio album Ad Astra, (literally “to the stars”). The set opens with the first track on the album, a cover of Zarathrustra by Richard Strauss, setting the space age theme perfectly.

The band play the first five tracks of the album and then skip ahead a couple of tracks so they play 8 out of the 11 new songs. Graham Coxon appears on two tracks, Fun People and Ad Astra, but doesn’t make an appearance tonight.

Jump In the Line, a cover of Harry Belafonte’s calypso classic, written by Lord Kitchener (that’s the Trinidadian calypso artist, not Earl Kitchener of British wartime fame). “Shake shake shake Señora”. It was a surprise choice for a cover in my opinion but sounded great.

The band take a break from new material to play 1994’s Jack Names the Planets, which Tim stated was the song that started their space age adventure. This was followed by Angel Interceptor which was celebrating its 30th birthday the following day. And finally Burn Baby Burn from 2001. An energetic trio of early songs to delight long standing fans, and keeping with the space theme.

After a group bow, the band walk off stage. With these short shows, we never expect an encore. I’m not sure if this encore was planned as the amps had been turned off, but Tim, Mark and Rick returned to play a bonus song – Girl From Mars. Of course. It’s the Ash song that everyone wants to hear and very much fits into the space themed set. So much energy in the room!