Ash made their Donington debut at Download Festival today (June 14).
Despite having over a decade's worth of festival experience under their belts, the Downpatrick trio have never actually appeared at the Donington rock fest in any of its guises.
The band took the Tuborg Stage at 19.30 (BST), and played songs spanning their career, from 'Kung Fu' to last year's 'You Can�t Have It All'.
Acknowledging their place at the poppier end of the Download spectrum, Tim Wheeler said to the crowd: "Thank for coming over to check us out� under a 'guilty pleasure'."
Earlier on today, Tim Wheeler told NME.COM about popping his Download cherry: "This is our first time in Download actually. We supported Stereophonics here a while ago. But we grew up listening to (radio show) The Friday Rock Scene with Tommy Vance, and he always seemed to be broadcasting from Monsters Of Rock.
"We thought it'd be quite nice for us. And people like Supergrass and Feeder have played it, and even Lethal Bizzle. It could be good! I think metallers are the nicest people you�ll meet in music. They're all big geeks for the most part!"
Although they have new material under development, Ash kept their show a strictly greatest hits affair, before encoring with 'Twilight Of The Innocents', the epic last song and title track from their most recent album.
Wheeler said: "It should be fun, when you've only got 50 minutes and you've got five albums, it's pretty easy to fill a set. There's a couple of songs from each album. I guess if we played all our singles it�d be an hour and a half now!"
Ash played:
'Orpheus'
'Burn Baby, Burn'
'You Can't Have It All'
'A Life Less Ordinary'
'Shining Light'
'Clones'
'Kung Fu'
'Renegade Cavalcade'
'Blacklisted'
'Girl From Mars'
'Twilight Of The Innocents'
Keep up with this weekend's (June 13-15) festival action as it happens on NME.COM. For news, pictures and blogs keep checking the NME.COM's Isle Of Wight Festival page and NME.COM's Download Festival page for live coverage from both sites.
Jun 15, 2008 at Carling Bar Academy, Birmingham -
Jun 17, 2008 at Barfly, Glasgow -
Jun 24, 2008 at Victoria Park, London -
More Ash tickets
