Ride review: Indie legends play first ever Cornwall gig and it was stunning
Before there was Nirvana and some of us still had luxuriant long hair, we used to shake it to a plethora of bands who emerged from the Home Counties and mixed the sweet harmonies of The Byrds and The Beatles with the coruscating noise of guitars tuned to sound like axe grinders.
For a period, the genre that became known as shoegazing, because it was all a bit shy and shambling, seemed like the saviour of British music for those of us getting sick of vapid late '80s pop music. Then came grunge and the movement was blown away by bands who were a bit nastier and louder.
Ride were the kings of shoegaze - all floppy hair, angelic vocals and guitars which provided a cathedral of sound (to coin a phrase beloved of the music press back then). The thrill of being in the middle of a sweaty mosh pit in the legendary and long defunct TJ's in Newport as much-heralded new boys on the scene Ride blew us away with the likes of Drive Blind and Like A Daydream will forever be burned into my memory.
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That was almost 35 years ago. I didn't really think I needed Ride in my life again but on the strength of their first ever gig in Cornwall, I most certainly do.
The band fell out in 1996, did their own musical things for years - most notably, guitarist Andy Bell joining Oasis on bass (as he's likely to do at next year's reunion) - before reforming in 2014.
This was one of those gigs where I suspect a large element of the audience (including me, I have to admit) wanted the old stuff - those giant shimmering epics, which sweetly take you by the hand, lead you to a beautiful glade and then bash your head against the rocks. We got them in the form of the mighty Dreams Burn Down, a double header of Vapour Trail and Seagull, and the final Chelsea Girl, which now sounds wonderfully naive compared to their later songs.
Then there was Cool Your Boots, with its mindblowing coda which seems to shift time itself, and a truly epic Leave Them All Behind, which had to be played twice - more on that in a bit. Not usually performed on this tour, the band had to slip in Sennen from classic debut album Nowhere. They were in Cornwall for the first time, after all, and Bell's middle name is Piran.
Ride are no heritage act, though. Six songs from this year's Interplay album were all sublime. Last Frontier brings some glacial Joy Division / New Order yearning into the mix, while I Came To See The Wreck is the equal and perhaps better of all the old seminal tracks; a breakdown in a mesmerising almost Cure-like song. Light In A Quiet Room, which goes from lysergic 60s psychedelia with Mark Gardener in full choirboy mode to full-on brain battering ending, is quintessential Ride.
It's easy to forget what a truly great band Ride are - Bell is a masterful and inventive guitarist, his harmonies with Gardener their special ingredient, while drummer Loz Colbert is a bit of an animal as Steve Queralt holds it all down with surprisingly funky bass lines.
The positive vibe of Peace Sign is a bit of a misstep, if a catchy song, and its sentiments obviously didn't work. A few songs later, Bell brought the vast Leave Them All Behind to a shuddering halt due to some tussle (or some tuss) near the front. Gardener commented that the band have toured all around the world and it's only in Cornwall where there's a fight. Shame.
Hopefully, it won't put them off coming back because this was one of those special gigs which appeared to unite band and besotted audience. There's been a lot of talk about band reunions lately - this is one to treasure.