The Northern rock band Ash will be among the main acts at Rochdale's Feelgood Festival next Saturday, sharing the main stage with established names including Gabrielle and Starsailor. The appearance comes as the trio prepare for a busy autumn and winter schedule that will take them around the world to mark the 30th anniversary of their debut album 1977.
Local date sits within a global anniversary tour
The Rochdale show is one stop on a sequence of dates the band have scheduled to celebrate three decades since the release of 1977. Following their summer festival appearances at Download and the Isle of Wight, the band will travel abroad in September for the opening leg in Australia, and will play across Asia including Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, before returning to Europe and the UK.
| Period / Date | Location / Note |
|---|---|
| Next Saturday | Rochdale – Feelgood Festival main stage |
| September | Australia – opening leg of anniversary tour |
| Asian dates | Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan |
| 8 December | Manchester Albert Hall – UK date on tour |
Balancing past and new material
Although the tour centres on playing the album that brought them early success, the band have emphasised they remain committed to producing new music. Their most recent record, the space-themed Ad Astra released last year, attracted strong responses from both fans and critics.
“It does feel like a proper world tour. We're playing places like Hong Kong where we have never played before - 30 years on and the album is still breaking new ground,”
The quotation came from drummer Rick McMurray, who reflected on how the anniversary shows have grown in scale since the band's earlier commemorative performances. He said the band had initially reacted to anniversary opportunities with a degree of reserve, but that the current schedule felt different in its international reach.
What Rochdale attendees can expect
For local residents, the festival appearance offers a rare chance to see the band perform close to home as part of a high-profile summer festival. The lineup for the main stage includes:
- Ash
- Gabrielle
- Starsailor
Locally, the festival is likely to draw additional visitors to the town centre on the day of the performance and may affect transport and footfall. The band have also signalled that they are continuing to work on new material, with McMurray noting the group already have a substantial backlog of songs and that roughly two-thirds of a new album are in place.
For Rochdale music fans, the show represents both a celebration of a formative record in British alternative rock and an opportunity to hear recent material from a band that continues to tour internationally.
