All well worth stylistic sacrifice

OH, yeah, it's been a great year for Ash, and they ended it last night with their biggest ever headline gig, the Point Theatre in Dublin This was a homecoming of sorts, with coachloads of fans arriving from the band's Northern constituency, and Tim Wheeler's parents, George and Jocelyn, sitting proudly in the balcony, watching their son tease thousands of kids into a heaving mass of fandom.

The opening track, Lose Control, laid down the ground rules for last night's show, and the audience acknowledged by throwing the rulebook out the window. The sound was dire, the bass was distorted, and the delivery was all over the shop, but the energy and sense of occasion pulled everything together, making every song sound like sweet cacophony. The subtle melodic touches of I'd Give You Anything were totally lost in the confusion, but Goldfinger hit home with sense-shattering accuracy, and Jack Names The Planets spun out of orbit with the exuberance of an acid-tripping asteroid.

Rock trios are usually fairly tight and fairly one-dimensional, but Tim Wheeler, Mark Hamilton and Rick McMurray have thrown musical cohesion to the winds, flailing wildly at a swarm of pop influences, hoping to catch that perfect moment when it all seems worth it.

One minute they're grungemetal's answer to The Monkees, the next they're Guns `N' Roses on helium; when they hit the spot, as in Oh Yeah, they turn the teenage wasteland into a colourful, timeless carnival. And when that happens, its well worth the stylistic sacrifice.

"Does anyone here drink Heineken?" asks Tim, before launching into the familiar advertising jingle of Uncle Pat, "because we don't!". Ash do, however, drink from the poisoned chalice of pop's past, and the slight rendition of ABBA's Does Your Mother Know? takes away some of the band's pure power.

Girl From Mars restores the equilibrium, and Tim lets the last, fateful lines hover tantalisingly over the crowd before the song crashlands into a final, frenzied chorus.