The world has been weird and it has been far, far too long since Heather and I were last at a proper gig. It was with some relief (if a little nervousness) that we finally found ourselves on a Saturday night trip into London, with a new venue to boot!

The Roundhouse is, well, a roundhouse of the early railway age (with a modern extension added to the side). We arrived early enough to mill around a bit, meeting (seemingly randomly) Darth Vader and some storm troopers and Chewbacca and a resistance fighter!

The venue itself is round, the main space being essentially where the turntable would have sat, surrounding by the circular array of supporting columns. It’s lovely, and makes for some nice acoustics too. We found bars before the queues became too long and some badly announced support arrived. The Gulps were loud, in a rock way, and perfectly good to start the night off.

It’s always good value when there are two support acts, and next up were the intriguingly named Indoor Pets. They came complete with their own glowing sign swiftly erected before their appearance on stage. Sadly they don’t seem to be a furry group dressed as cats, dogs, and rabbits. They do appear to be slightly schizophrenic, the long haired guitarist seemingly having wandered in from a heavy metal band to a more pop like world.

The main event were soon enough on stage, Ash fairly rattling through the hits of a Teenage Wildlife celebrating 25 years of the band. There was a new song thrown in there but in the main this was a setlist of the crowd pleasing hits (and a cover of Another Girl, Another Planet). They culminated with an ever rousing rendition of Girl From Mars, a point that left one vaguely wondering how it was going to be matched for an encore.

That thought was answered soon enough, as the band reappeared and brought onto stage a certain Charlotte Hatherley, to make the band fully complete once more. There were four more songs, ending with Burn Baby Burn plus some messing around on stage, complete with over excited roady. And then back out into the Camden night, already looking forward to the next one.