63: Ash - Burn Baby Burn

If I'm listing my favourite songs of this decade, it would be totally remiss of me not to include at least one song by a band that I saw play live on at least seven occasions during said decade. 'Burn Baby Burn's as good a choice as any.... both NME and Q magazine's single of the year for 2002, and the first song ever played on that most "Noughties" of radio stations, BBC 6 Music.

If I could have been any modern rock star, I'd have chosen to be Tim Wheeler. He's always made it seem so effortless, with that "don't give a f**k" attitude, like a credible man's Liam Gallagher. Just hearing a short blast of the soaring guitar intro to 'Burn Baby Burn' conjures up images in my head of Wheeler, standing in perfect rock stance (see Jack Black teaching the kids in 'School of Rock' if you don't know what I mean), flying-V draped across his torso.



'Burn Baby Burn' was the second single off what I consider to be Ash's best album, 'Free All Angels' (controversial, moi?) It was released in 2001. I was just finishing my first year of Uni, and Ash, whose members are the same age as me, were already bona fide stars, on their third major label release. Nevertheless, I felt like I could identify with them. I saw them play at Oxford Brookes Student Union a week after the release of the album, and it was one of the most memorable gigs of my life - I came close to being ejected by security for "crowd surfing too much". For me, Ash summed up everything that was right about British indie-rock this decade, and 'Burn Baby Burn' is still one of their finest moments.