Ash, The Films - Proud Galleries, London - Friday 8th June 2007

This was a night at Year Zero Club, held at Proud Galleries in Camden. They have been running what they call the "Secret Series", with big bands playing in small rooms, announced only a couple of days before. I had wanted to see support band The Films anyway, so when they announced Ash as the big secret headliner, that definitely convinced me to go along. At door opening time, it was actually surprisingly easy to queue up and pay the £8 to get it - I had expected it to be much more busy.

Once inside, the strange-ness of the venue became apparent. There is a very small room where the bands play, holding no more than perhaps 200 people. Through it, there is a huge marquee which had a bar, and lots of tables and chairs. Then, there is a huge roof terrace with more tables and chairs. So, the total capacity is probably over a thousand, of whom no more than 20% can actually watch the band. Luckily, the venue is usually full of music industry people, who have varying interest in watching the bands that are performing anyway.

Through a friend, we managed to secure wristbands for the VIP area, which guaranteed entry to the gig room, and allowed us to wander around freely throughout the venue. This included the upstairs VIP bar, where Chris Martin from Coldplay, and Edith Bowman from Radio 1, amongst others, were drinking. A-list (in the first case at least) celebrities.

The Films played a reasonably short, snappy set as support band. They went through much of their debut album, which isn't released here yet, but which the lucky Americans have already been able to get hold of. Luckily, the internet is a wonderful thing, so many of the songs were vaguely familiar to me already. They sounded excellent, and I suspect that, if they get some good music press coverage behind them (which they deserve I think), they could be one of those US bands that comes over to Britain and makes it big. Playing their strongest songs Belt Loops and Black Shoes towards the end of the set, probably helped it live longer in the memory, but it was a very impressive set all in all - I will try to catch them next time they play in this neck of the woods.

The layout of the gig room at Proud did mean that it wasn't easy to see what was going on - the band essentially just played on the floor at the front of the room, rather than on a raised stage. The lighting was also appalling (non-existent in fact), hence there are no photos of this one. I bumped into the Films lead singer in the upstairs bar afterwards, and drunkenly annoyed him with my view of how good I thought his band were. Whoops.

Ash's headline set was a warmup for their Isle of Wight Festival slot the following day, so as expected, it was drawn largely from the million or so excellent singles in their back catalogue. It really is amazing to be reminded of just how many amazing singles they have, and they kept flowing throughout the set, which lasted just over an hour. The start of Kung Fu and Girl From Mars caused near stampedes at the bar and in the toilets, as people quit what they were doing, and ran towards the gig room. The quick-slow-quick arrangement of Kung Fu in particular, made the small room look like a riot was going on. When you are drunk, they are a great band to be playing in front of you - lots of fantastic indie pop songs to dance to.

So a great set, and I wandered off into the night a happy man. I wasn't happy for the following five days though, as a dodgy kebab from the Marathon kebab house on Chalk Farm Road, saw me laid up with a severe dose of food poisoning for the best part of the following week. That forced the missing of Kent playing cricket in Tunbridge Wells, Seven Story Down at The Fly, and Art Brut at the Astoria. Most annoying, but there you go.