Im getting a bit too old for this.....

Ash with support from Formation V

Sheffield University Student Union, Saturday March 3rd

Ok so my fabulous friends Celeste and Tim shouted me a ticket, train ticket and accomodation to see Ash play! Yay I thought because I last saw them like 5 years ago at the Powerstation when it was still going.

We got to Sheffield two minutes into the big Man U vs Liverpool game, so to Cests dismay, Tim and I spent the next half and hour looking for a pub that was showing the game, and eventually found one. I was actually surprised to find that Sheffield is actually a really nice little city- very studenty seeing as there are two Universities there.

We checked into our hotel room after the game and sprayed it copiously with air freshner (unfortunately landed a smoking room that absolutely STANK!!!), and missioned to the nearby restaraunt to nab a corkscrew for the bottle of wine, which we promptly consumed whilst chatting away and watching a bit of telly. We actually saw the most erotically charged, suggestive ad for sausages ever (even Tim commented that he felt wrong watching the ad) which was rather funny.

We headed back into town to find the venue where the next hilarious thing happened.... I made a comment to Cest that 'wouldn't it be funny if Tim Wheeler (lead singer) walk right past and apparently as I said it that actual drummer from Ash walked past us! How wierd! Anyway we went to a very lovely pasta restaraunt, where I got the Ragu dish and was sooooooooooo tasty! I think there was as much meat as I had eaten for the entire year in that sauce... yum yum yum!

Onto the gig:

So take a venue literally the size of Shadows for us Auckland University Graduates, take every cool song that Ash had ever played, add a few newby songs and you have an absolutely fantastic gig!

They opened with the first song off 1977 whose name escapes me coz I never owned the album (shock shock horror horror), lept into Burn Baby Burn, then Jesus Says.... pure class! The three of us each guessed a song that Ash would play, and whoevers song was last had to sleep on the fold out couch in our classy Travelodge room (sadly the honours went to Tim who wrongly guessed Orpheus!). Anyway if you notice the main title we quickly came to the conclusion that we were probably the oldest people there. This was confirmed after the gig when Cest and I (the hard core rockers at the front) came away battered and bruised from the being squished at the barrier..... come to think of it we weren't the only ones- all the security guards at the front had cuts and bruises and wierd bumps gashes on the eyebrows.... god knows what those crazy kids in Sheffield get up to. They finished off with the classic Kung Fu and just played every cool song imaginable. My personal fave was A Life Less Ordinary ... class class class!

So after the gig we are all a wee bit tispy and head off to find a pub (NB at this point its only 10pm because of a curfew on campus!!!!) and discover that Sheffieldiens like to a) dress up wear next to nothing (boob tubes, heels and short shorts mandatory!) b) like to go out with their mothers c) the aforementioned mothers like to also dress in the aforementioned way but with green highlights in their hair. Interesting anyway and we left after an hour or so..... during which time so awful covers band massacred Charmless Man by Blur. There are some songs that you just don't touch!

So the next day dawned and we had a bit greasy breakfast in the Little Chef next to the Travelodge checked out at Midday and headed back into town and checked out the Winter Gardens that had loads of NZ native plants (And I'm glad to say I can still recognise my Dicksonia squarrosas from my Dicksonia fibrosa) with a fantastic speciment of Kaka beak. Very good shit. Sat around for ages over a coffee contemplating what to do seeing as it was hosing down with rain and unanimously decided that the pub was the best option so found one by the station, and then it gets a bit blurry from then onwards. I personally blame GNER rail or whoever for selling whole bottles of wine on the train! Anyway was suitably drunk by the time I got home.

Yay for tree ferns! So that sums up yet another cool weekend!