Ride Portsmouth Guildhall on Interplay Tour
New Songs from the new release plus old classics
Artist - Ride
Venue - The Portsmouth Guildhall
Town - Portsmouth UK
Date - 17th September 2024
Ride have a new product to promote and as such a UK Tour is in full swing, Interplay is the new release full of all the ingredients we would expect from Ride. The term Shoegaze will always sit heavily on their shoulders but they have meandered in and out of the genre over their existence, the debut album Nowhere probably getting the maximum points for it’s Shoegaze credibility and then the magnificent Going Blank Again was such a perfect record for the time. They then started to look back to their 1960’s contemporaries and influences which painted the sound and feel of 1994’s Carnival Of Light, still a success but maybe a sign of a change in thinking within the bands songwriting partnership Mark Gardener and Andy Bell.
Tarantula crawled out to a very lukewarm response resulting from internal strife which was breaking the band apart. They split in 1996.
Unexpectedly in 2014 Ride reformed after the band members had been “playing away” in other bands or projects happily for many years This was primarily for touring but when they had settled right back into what they did best, new material was released in 2017 on the Album Weather Diaries. Harking back to the sounds of the early nineties it was instantly appreciated by the fans who were not expecting their return. Two albums later and Ride were at Portsmouth Guildhall where I caught up with their show.
Support artists on this tour were Junodream who describe their sound as Spacerock due to their influences, though maybe a mix of genres as with many modern bands in fact there are some similarities to the band they are touring with. Well structured and interesting songs along with strong vocals kept the early crowd interested for the half hour or so that Junodream were on stage. 20 pounds for their album Pools of Colour at the merchandise table was too tempting so I look forward to spinning the vinyl in the clear light of day.
Ride warmed up with two new album tracks from Interplay before a dip into the distant past with “Dreams Burn Down” from the debut Nowhere. Most of the songs came from this album and the follow up Going Blank Again when they were untouchable ln the niche they had carved for themselves. Interestingly no songs were performed from Carnival of Light or maybe they are varying songs during the tour?
Andy Bell was still rocking the Oasis look though he no longer plays with them, with jacket done up to the neck and cap to go incognito, he finally discards them later in the show. Mark Gardener was the antithesis with enthusiasm in abundance and the music sounded excellent, vocals and guitars at a perfect level to display the quality of those songs.
There were no low spots in the set, with particular highlights being “Twisterella”, “Peace Sign”, “Seagull” and the epic “Leave them all behind” during the encore. To finish as Gardener mentioned the first song written with the band “Chelsea Girl”
Catch them still on tour