Music / Bristol
Review: Ride, SWX
“We’re very happy to be back here” says frontman Mark Gardener as Ride take to the stage at Bristol’s SWX. It’s a feeling shared by his audience; there doesn’t seem to be a single person without a huge grin on their face throughout the band’s two hour performance.
The set starts with Lannoy Point, opening track of Ride’s new album, Weather Diaries, released earlier this year. There’s symmetry, then, in the fact that Chelsea Girl, opening track of the band’s first EP, finishes things off as final song of the encore. It’s a setlist that maps the trajectory of the Oxford four-piece from their nascent days to 2017, and one that affirms that their recent reunion is a worthy one.
is needed now More than ever
Charting at number eleven, Weather Diaries, their first album in over two decades, has been certainly been a success. That success is reflected in how well the new material is received, a sizeable portion of the crowd sing along to the new tracks word for word, just as they do to the band’s biggest hits. However, it’s as Steve Queralt’s distinctive bass kicks off Seagull, the first pre-reunion song Ride play, that there’s an audible “yes” from fans.
But it would be unfair to say that such a reaction is rooted only in nostalgia. A good number of those clad in Ride t-shirts would have still been in baby grows when the four-piece split back in 1996, if they were born at all. Even for those who were there the first time around, the excitement in hearing Seagull begin is surely, at least in part, because of how brilliant it is live, as well as the memories the song might carry. Tonight, as it dissolves into increasingly accelerating fuzzy, overdriven euphoria, it is coupled with ever-quickening strobe lights. The more the band are obscured by flashing lights, the more enchanting the song becomes. It is undoubtedly the standout moment of the night.
The acid test for any recently reformed band is how their new songs measure up against their biggest hits. Tonight, it’s the heavier, bass driven Lateral Alice with its rumbling drums that really proves the quality of Weather Diaries. It’s followed by the gentler, slowly building and frankly sublime OX4, from Ride’s 1992 album Going Blank Again. Whilst they showcase opposite ends of the band’s sound spectrum, that Lateral Alice can sit comfortably next to OX4 highlights that 2017 Ride are as compelling and enchanting as they’ve ever been.
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