Darth Vader is on stage. Flanked by a squad of Stormtroopers, he waves his glowing red lightsabre at a packed Camden Roundhouse, who dutifully roar in approval. He’s here to herald Ash playing the entire of their classic 1977 album – named in-part because it was the year of release for Star Wars, the band’s unifying cinematic obsession. Thn the iconic sound of a TIE Fighter reverberates around the venue, signifying the helter-skelter opening track, ‘Lose Control’. And the place goes crazy.

Ash aren’t the first band to play an album live in its entirety. Hell, it isn’t even the first time they’ve played 1977 in its entirety. But 1977 is always going to be a special record for us. It was the record of our teenage years. It was the record that soundtracked our personal Wonder Years-moments when we were growing up in suburbia. It’s been out for 12 years, swaggering under the weight of classic Britpop-punk anthems, somehow crafted by a trio of fresh-faced 19 year-olds from Downpatrick. That makes us feel equal parts awe-inspired and terribly, terribly old.

But back to tonight - the set list? Hell, just take a look at the back of your copy of the album:

Playing the songs in order was satisfying in ways we couldn’t even have begun to predict beforehand. With barnstormers like ‘Kung Fu’ and ‘Girl From Mars’ fired out so much earlier than a typical Ash gig, the pleasure of hearing rarely-ever-played-live tracks like ‘Let It Flow’ and ‘Lost In You’ was all the sweeter, those niggling expectations of when another Big Song was about to be played thankfully lost.

Ash play ‘Gone The Dream’:

After super-charged ‘Darkside/Lightside’ powered the 1977 playback to a close, you’d think there’d be little in the way of encores that could top that set list, wouldn’t you? But the band returns with ‘Sneaker’, one of the b-sides from ‘Goldfinger’. Re-discovered by most of tonight’s crowd thanks to the bonus Cosmic Debris disc of extras that came with Ash’s sublime Intergalactic Sonic 7”s a few years back, it’s one of thos b-sides that will forever be questioned as to why it wasn’t a single in its own right.