Irish indie punks Ash have announced a mammoth UK and Ireland tour for the autumn and winter of 2025/26.
The Ad Astra tour kicks off with two September dates in London then resumes in Swansea in November, running all the way through to February.
With 25 dates in total, it’s a big tour for a band who have been going more than 30 years, and who had a Top 20 album as recently as 2023 with their eighth studio record Race The Night (reviewed here).
Ad Astra is Latin for “to the stars”, the words that came out of a teenaged Tim Wheeler’s mouth in the summer of 1995, setting up the classic chorus to the band’s first Top 20 hit, Girl From Mars.
Speaking about the tour, Wheeler says: “You could call it going back to our roots, but that’s only partly true. You could all it something noble and say we’re supporting the smaller venues upon which the music industry is built, and that’s somewhat true.
“But the truth is we’re doing this because tours like this are part of our DNA. Whether that’s cracking the ceiling in the Jug Of Ale as Girl From Mars climbed the charts, or recording live versions of Meltdown at the Leadmill or doing Glastonbury warm ups at the Venue, it’s something we’ve always done.
“And it feels like the right time to do it again. It’s gonna be a visceral, whites-of-their-eyes experience and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.”
Last month, Ash released their first new music since Race The Night – a suitably vibrant cover of Harry Belafonte’s 1961 calypso hit Jump In The Line, which achieved cult status after being used in the movie Beetlejuice.
Ash fans will have caught the band playing the song – which has been their outro music for live shows in recent years – on their recent tour with The Darkness.
Tickets for the Ad Astra tour go on general sale at 10am on Friday 23 May HERE.
Ash still consists of the three original members who got together as teenagers in Downpatrick, County Down, in 1992: Wheeler on guitar and vocals, Mark Hamilton on bass and Rick McMurray on drums and backing vocals.
