Ride
SWG3, Glasgow
It speaks volumes to the burgeoning confidence of Ride, now enjoying a fruitful second act to their career following a near-20-year hiatus - that the band devote so much of this show in Glasgow to their latest, and seventh, studio album.
The hundreds of (mostly middle-aged) fans who flocked to SWG3 on an uncharacteristically sultry September evening will doubtless have been hoping to hear the hardy perennials which made the band such favourites of the indie scene in the early ‘90s.
But they were forced to wait for their slice of shoegazing heaven. Not that anyone seemed to mind.
Ride have now recorded three albums since reconvening in 2014 and in this their sixth show in Glasgow since reforming played six tracks from their latest long player, Interplay, which was released on the Wichita label in March. Indeed, five of the opening six songs were drawn from the album, with only Dreams Burn Down – built to a gloriously chaotic climax of feedback and thundering drums - from 1990’s Fall EP punctuating the run.
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But the experienced was all the better for it. While many bands of their vintage appear content to plunder the back catalogue, Ride are a band renewed, with each of their comeback albums reflecting a drive to push their own boundaries and enter new sonic territory. Which is perhaps why it was so satisfying to hear the pick of Interplay in a live setting, with tracks such as opener Monaco, Last Frontier and Portland Rocks retaining Ride’s inherent gift for melody but underpinned by a more expansive backdrop, redolent in places of The Cure, Joy Division, and Tears for Fears.
And it is not only the tracks from Interplay that stand out from the Oxford band’s more recent oeuvre. The sweeping Lannoy Point, from 2017’s Weather Diaries, and the clipped fuzz of Kill Switch from 2019’s This Is Not a Safe Place are highlights too, showcasing a confidence that perhaps has only come through Ride’s evolution as musicians.
Yet it would be wrong to deny the hardcore what they really came for, and Ride duly obliged. A key part of Ride’s enduring appeal is the breathtaking drumming of Loz Colbert, who along with bassist Steve Queralt generates the power that underpins the crafted guitar interplay of vocalists Andy Bell and Mark Gardener. And in traditional style it was this combination that propelled a sprinkling of the crowd favourites that Ride shows have become renowned for over the decades.
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Twisterella, Cool Your Boots, Vapour Trail, and Taste - brimming with gliding Rickenbackers and Byrds-style harmonies - had the (veteran) indie kids eating out of the palms of their hands, before things got serious for the noise lovers with Seagull and its Tomorrow Never Knows-inspired beat.
Capping it all was an encore which saw eight-minute epic Leave Them All Behind followed by the set-closing Chelsea Girl, the rapid-fire fuzz-pop gem that announced the band to the world on the debut Ride EP in 1989. A perfect antidote to the Sunday evening blues for the middle-aged hipsters who continue to hold this special band close to their hearts.
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