First You Look So Strong, Then You Fade Away

Ride were welcomed on stage at The Ritz last Thursday like returning heroes, a 90s indie re- union where the group have made new music that stands alongside the songs and albums of their/ our youth. The gig and tour was postponed from two years ago, a anniversary tour for their 1990 debut Nowhere, and advance clips from elsewhere made it seem that they were on fire, a run of rapturous gigs. Arriving on stage at nine they set about playing Nowhere in full, in order, kicking straight into the full pelt indie/ shoegaze/ Byrds-y assault of Seagull, feedback ringing, drums pounding and vocal harmonies at the centre with that loopy bassline driving it. Nowhere as Andy Bell tells us, 'is a funny album, it starts fast and then slows down'. The band play it like it's new material, energised and enthused by the reaction of the crowd and their own rediscovery and expansion of the songs. If anything, the songs sound better live in 2022 than the early 90s recorded versions- the twin guitars scorching and soaring where they need to, the harmonies spot on and the rhythm section underpinning it all. Loz Colbert's drumming is a sensation in itself and Andy Bell switches between pedals and guitars, noise and melody. Paralysed burns slowly, Dreams Burn Down is an epic bedsit anthem and Vapour Trail is greeted by a mosh pit, and a mass singalong as the song finishes and the crowd take over, something approaching hysteria. 

After the album is done they play some songs from the period- the beautiful, 60s/ 90s guitar pop of Taste, the harmonica- led fuzz and feedback of Here And Now and the huge, skyscraping set closer Nowhere, breaking down into feedback and the static distortion of waves lapping against a shore as the band wave goodbye. There's an encore of course, where the old and the new get blended together and the crowd are dancing, bouncing, singing and waving hands in the air, the indie kids of 1990 (now all grown up into middle age) and their children (also now grown up) blasting out the lines together. There are two songs from the re- union album Weather Diaries (Lannoy Point and All I Want), a tour debut for Twisterella (because the support band bdrmm were bugging them to play it), OX4, Kill Switch (from 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place), a delirious Unfamiliar (from 1991's Today Forever EP) and to finish Leave Them All Behind, the eight minute opener of 1991's Going Blank Again and the perfect set closer, twin guitars fed through FX pedals, massive bass and drums and those Byrdsian harmonies filling the Ritz, 'just let it flow/ just let it flow', the sounds spiralling round and round, caught in a loop of noise and harmonics. 

Vapour Trail

All this and I had a chat with Andy Bell afterwards too.