For years, whenever my dad has wanted to make the point about how quickly time goes, he’s said the same thing: “Star Wars is 40 years old.” He started saying that in 2017. Next year, of course, it’ll be half a century old. Frankly, neither of us is ready for that.
Which is a roundabout way of getting to Ash. Their debut album was called “1977” partly because Tim Wheeler and Mark Hamilton were born that year, and partly because of their love of Star Wars. Now it’s getting a 30th anniversary edition. I was 20 when it came out, turning 21 that year. It has absolutely no right to be this old.
Ash were one of my favourites back then, and I reconnected with them a few years ago when I saw them at a festival. What struck me was how many great songs they had. Listening to “1977” again, that feeling comes flooding back.
“Lose Control” still begins in tumult, and “Goldfinger” and “Girl From Mars” remain in the live set for the very obvious reason that they’re brilliant. Yet there’s a tougher edge to “I’d Give You Anything”, and at four and a half minutes its twists almost feel prog. Ash could do considerably more than knock out a catchy single.
They always had a tenderness too. “Gone The Dream” is a reminder of that, while “Oh Yeah” remains an anthem and “Let It Flow” has all that youthful romance. The punky fun of “Innocent Smile”, the harmonies of “Angel Interceptor”, the balladry of “Lost In You”: there are so many great songs here that you almost take them for granted. “Darkside Lightside” ends things in another glorious tumult.
Still, nobody needs me to go through every song on a record that’s been around for three decades. The real curiosity on the first disc is “Bittersweet Blue”, the almost mythical lost song finally seeing the light of day.
Originally recorded in 1996, its rediscovered tapes have been brought to life with Wheeler completing the lyrics all these years later. Hearing it in 2026 is fascinating. It sounds like Ash then, but there’s something of Ash now in it too. More to the point, it’s a tremendous song. Even without the backstory, it would deserve your attention.
Then comes the usual selection of different versions. “Oh Yeah” gets a 2026 revisit and sounds a little bigger. Whether we really need the demo mix of “Girl From Mars” is another matter, although the acoustic “Gone The Dream” is much more rewarding. You can decide how much those things matter to you.
The second disc, though, is where this edition really comes alive. Recorded at STABAL in 2021, it sees the band play the album in full before adding six songs from around that period and earlier.
“Goldfinger” feels a little different in this setting, “I’d Give You Anything” is more raw, and there’s a touch of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” about “Kung Fu”. “Let It Flow” comes alive, while on “Innocent Smile” the handbrake is properly off. This is a proper taste of Ash live, with all the skill and excitement that entails.
The additional songs underline just how much they had going on. “Coasting” is far too good to be dismissed as a non-album track, and the same goes for “Sneaker”, originally a B-side to “Goldfinger”. “American Devil”, which goes back to an early demo in 1992, makes the brilliance of the band obvious all over again.
Then there’s “T. Rex”, a B-side to “Oh Yeah” in 1996, which takes you back to an era when bands put brilliant songs on the other side of their singles. Some of the best Wildhearts songs, for example, never appeared on a studio album. Ash clearly understood the value of those extra tracks too.
The Helen Love cover “Punk Boy” and “Silver Surfer”, from their school friends Laser Gun Nun, later known as Backwater, round things off. B-sides, covers and early rarities: the sort of things that matter to fans, and they matter to me.
For all the extras, though, what cannot be overlooked is the absolute majesty of the original record. “1977” is still brilliant. Still full of life. Still capable of reminding you exactly why you loved this band in the first place.
How the hell it’s managed to become 30 years old is anybody’s guess.
